F. Holland Day: Part III

Was Day Gay?

As part of the series of Journal entries about contemporary alternative gay male art versus traditional gay male art I explore the history and relationship of photography in general to gay male photography in particular.

How does Fred Holland Day’s photography fit with my original idea that there are two types of gay male art 1) body based, which seems to be most prevelant and 2) as a more recent development, the expression of the relationship of gay vision to gay sexuality. On the surface Day’s work is body based, that is he made photographs based on the nude male form whether youthful, adult, black or white. However, that is a bit simplistic because we do not have any evidence beyond Fred Holland Day’s work itself that he was “gay” in the contemporary sense. Additionally, Day is enigmatic because there is always some other purpose attached to his work. Whether creating pseudo-religious works based on Christ’s suffering, anguish, and death at the crucifixion or making images about an idealized pre-industrial ancient time, he was using the beauty of the youthful or adult male form as well as his own body to achieve his aesthetic goal. There is also, first and always, the use of lighting, blurring, and other obfuscating techniques to help achieve his idealized space in which photography becomes a modern art form equal to classical painting as well as (more typical of the 19th century) scientific tool to be used for documentation and classification. Was his interest in photographing nude young men a “gay” interest? Or was Day, using these young men in his photographs because he could, and because he was also their mentor, hosting the young men at a kind of summer camp away from the travails of the city slums. In that camp he taught photography and a host of other educated professionals worked with the boys. Many success stories abound, the most impressive of which is the spiritual author, Kahlil Gibran.

My conclusion is that F. Holland Day, if he was gay in the modern sense was also quite likely celibate, because there is no record of his sexual interest in either men or boys. There is only what we surmise knowing of his eccentricities, and by looking at his photographs.* Because we as LGBT people perceive these works as most likely those of a gay man does not make it so, though I must admit I wish it to be so. However, unless someone finds letters, notes or some other ancillary evidence that Day was gay in the Postmodern sense, I am not sure that Day’s intent was to create homosexual art. However, I believe that I can include his work in the gay lexicon precisely because it is perceived as gay by so many who view it as such, both in and outside the LGBT community.

Note

*These eccentricities included requiring guests at his summer camp to wear clothing and costumes so that they might be used as part of his photographic tableau. If guests refused, they were asked to leave.

Bibliography

Boxer, Sarah, F. Holland Day – photographic exhibition, Boston, Art Forum, March 2001, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_39/ai_75761322/print , visited 9:55 A.M. EST., February 13, 2008.

Curtis, Verna Posever and Jane Van Nimmen (eds.), F. Holland Day, Selected texts and bibliography. (1995) Oxford, England: ABC-Clio Press,

F. Holland Day, The Exhibition Catalogue, Art and the Camera: The Photographs of F. Holland Day, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 12/06/00 – 03/ 25/01.

Goldman, Jason, “Day, F. Holland, part I and Part II” (Ed.) Claude J. Summers, glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. www.glbtq.com/arts/day_fh.html, Revised 10/29/06, Viewed 9:56 A.M. EST, February 13, 2008.

House and Norwood History Museum, “About Fred Holland Day: Common Errors/Suggested Readings,” http://www.norwoodhistoricalsociety.org/fhdread.html. Revised 06/20/05, Viewed 9:50 A.M. EST, February 13, 2008.

F. Holland Day: Part II

As part of the series of Journal entries about contemporary alternative gay male art versus traditional gay male art I explore the history and relationship of photography in general to gay male photography in particular.

A Comparison and Understanding of Straight v. Queer

F. Holland Day as he is more often known was the leading Pictorialist and believed in Photography as a Fine Art that should rival classical painting. He was- and is - our Twenty-first century stereotypical image of the wealthy spoiled son of old money. However, that wealth allowed Day to pursue single-mindedly his particular aesthetic interests. As such, he was in direct conflict with his rival Alfred Stieglitz and the early Twentieth Century Post-pictorialist movement. It is interesting to note that the Group f/64 photographers described their type of “unaltered” photography as “straight photography.” Thus, anything that was not manipulated from the “norm,” was identified as correct while variation, manipulation, alteration, change itself, was understood as bad. So it is that the Modernist conceptualization of photography can be stood on its head. We can easily describe Pictorialist interests - that which is transformed, bent, blurred, obfuscated, queer - as the more avant-garde, and Alfred Stieglitz and the Post-pictorialist Group f/64 photographers as stodgy and conservative. I also draw a comparison between the dichotomous notions, heterosexual v. homosexual (straight v. gay in our culture) and “straight photography v. manipulated photography. Thus, the first element in both pairs is identified with the narrow and limited, the second with the more diverse and courageous.

*Day, F. Holland,"Khalil Gibran," Wikimedia Commons, The Louise Imogen Guiney Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. Modified 18:46, June 18, 2007, Viewed 9:33 AM EST, Sunday, February 24, 2008.


Bibliography

Boxer, Sarah, F. Holland Day – photographic exhibition, Boston, Art Forum, March 2001, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_39/ai_75761322/print , visited 9:55 A.M. EST., February 13, 2008.

Curtis, Verna Posever and Jane Van Nimmen (eds.), F. Holland Day, Selected texts and bibliography. (1995) Oxford, England: ABC-Clio Press,

F. Holland Day, The Exhibition Catalogue, Art and the Camera: The Photographs of F. Holland Day, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 12/06/00 – 03/ 25/01.

Goldman, Jason, Day, F. Holland, (Ed.) Claude J. Summers, glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. www.glbtq.com/arts/day_fh.html, Revised 10/29/06, Viewed 9:56 A.M. EST, February 13, 2008.

House and Norwood History Museum, “About Fred Holland Day: Common Errors/Suggested Readings,” http://www.norwoodhistoricalsociety.org/fhdread.html. Revised 06/20/05, Viewed 9:50 A.M. EST, February 13, 2008.

Fred Holland Day: Part I

*1
As part of the series of Journal entries about contemporary alternative gay male art versus traditional gay male art I explore the history and relationship of photography in general to gay male photography in particular.

He was the ultimate representative of the Pictorialists, and achieved the height of his career when in 1900 he organized an exhibition of 375 photographs at the Royal Photographic Society. His homoerotic art was in the mainstream at the turn of the 19th century precisely because Victorian society had an approach/avoidance relationship to sexuality, with titillation v. fear in constant play. Day’s use of naked youths in pseudo classical settings was part and parcel of the Pictorialist use of the pastoral to suggest an imagined nubile antiquity.* His use of religious subjects in which he himself posed (The Seven Last Words of Christ) though based in his own concerns was, however, perceived by the Victorian Culture as either blasphemous or spiritual in nature. His use of soft focus and other techniques also helped to draw Victorian acclaim, and the attention to composition and lighting assured the eventual Modern and Post-modern approval of his work. His work - ignored for more than fifty years after the early part of the Twentieth Century - was perhaps the most influential in placing fin de siecle photography in the fine art mainstream.


Notes

*1 *Day, F. Holland,"Suffering: The Ideal," Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Day%2C_Fred_Holland_%281864-1933%29_-_Da_Suffering_the_ideal_2.jpg. Modified 12 May 2006, at 16:03, Viewed 8:20 AM EST, Sunday, February 18, 2008.

* I must interject that very little is known of Day's private sexual life,and his homosexuality is most often assumed based on the subject matter of his photographs.


Bibliography

Boxer, Sarah, F. Holland Day – photographic exhibition, Boston, Art Forum, March 2001, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_39/ai_75761322/print , visited 9:55 A.M. EST., February 13, 2008.

Curtis, Verna Posever and Jane Van Nimmen (eds.), F. Holland Day, Selected texts and bibliography. (1995) Oxford, England: ABC-Clio Press,

F. Holland Day, The Exhibition Catalogue, Art and the Camera: The Photographs of F. Holland Day, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 12/06/00 – 03/ 25/01.

Goldman, Jason, Day, F. Holland, (Ed.) Claude J. Summers, glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. www.glbtq.com/arts/day_fh.html, Revised 10/29/06, Viewed 9:56 A.M. EST, February 13, 2008.

House and Norwood History Museum, “About Fred Holland Day: Common Errors/Suggested Readings,” http://www.norwoodhistoricalsociety.org/fhdread.html. Revised 06/20/05, Viewed 9:50 A.M. EST, February 13, 2008.

The Most Magnificent Beach and Water Colors

Just another walk on the beach – yeah, right! We strolled down Juno Beach at mid-afternoon on Friday, February 1st, and were startled with the unbelievable color of the Atlantic Ocean. Just look at this photograph. The Caribbean Sea must have moved to the South Florida Coast for the afternoon. We do have beautiful transparent emerald and aqua water normally, but I haven’t seen it electric neon blue before. I will use this photograph as inspiration for a drawing after I complete my current drawing of salt- water marshes and Palm trees.

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day, dear Journal!

Preserve this Magnificent North Florida Landscape, Please.

Steinhatchee River at Sunrise
So, here we are on a family outing, my partner, his sister and husband, and another family friend. We are visiting the old family stomping grounds at the Steinhatchee River in the Big Bend area of Florida. It has been extremely warm for this time of year, and we have gone “Ramblin” as North Floridians say, looking for fishing holes, and visiting the locations that Joe remembers from his childhood. They are cold aqua colored natural springs, fishing holes, and sluggish bay beaches where the Gulf of Mexico seems to have worn itself out trying to push waves over the one-hundred mile wide shallow Big Bend bay. We drive through long stretches of salt-water marsh and spot egrets, blue heron, and even a soaring American eagle that glides to a perch atop a huge pine. I have taken hundreds of photographs that I will use as inspiration for pastel drawings.

We are staying at Steinhatchee Landing Resort, an irregular clutch of cottages and houses with gardens, and live oak shaded lawns rolling down to the River, a lazy, tidal flow that provides “the best fishing in North Florida,” according to the natives, Georgians, and other fishing devotees that vacation here. Jimmy Carter has stayed here in order to enjoy the fishing, and I suspect inspect the modular building methods employed in constructing this marvelous resort complex. I have enjoyed the excellent exercise facility (everything works), and the many photographic opportunities provided by both the domesticated landscape of the resort and the surrounding natural habitat. This is one of the least developed areas in the entire state of Florida, though it did enjoy a brief building explosion during the recently collapsed mega real estate boom. I hope the building boom does not resume after the current recession because it will threaten and finally destroy this incredible natural landscape.

Sink America, Sink!

I was going to write about the photographer F. Holland Day this morning. However, when I read the news about this latest court ruling against the good citizens of New Orleans, I couldn’t help myself. These are the very people the court system should be helping and protecting from criminal injustice whether it be on the part of other citizens, corporations, or the state

The United States of America Federal Government is Immune to Lawsuits based on its failure to protect its very own citizens!

We should be outraged over the dismissal of all class-action lawsuits against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by our federal courts. Once again, the citizens of New Orleans have been SCREWED! I am increasingly of the opinion that the system of law and courts inherited from the Roman Empire and of which we are so proud is a failed system. I know that many of my fellow citizens feel that New Orleans and its citizenry deserved to be wiped off the map because they lived in an area so terribly flood prone. However, this new court ruling is a travesty in line with the 2000 Supreme Court ruling that stopped the counting of votes here in South Florida, thus preventing the logging of many absentee votes. I am aware that in the case of the New Orleans class action suit the judge based his ruling on a 1928 law that states that the Federal government is immune to law suits based on the failure of flood control projects to protect citizens. However, this particular ruling sets the tone for all future ruling on government flood control projects in all coastal and river flood planes that affect most of our major cities. According to government studies, most of us live in DANGEROUS storm and/or flood prone areas. So, why bother to have any dams, levees, pumps, and/or other expensive flood control projects if the government is not going to be forced to stand by them? Why spend vast sums of money on half-ass projects designed to fail should a hurricane or other storm or series of storms reach slightly above normal proportions? We might as well pass a law that allows George W. Bush to stay in office another term, shut down the Army Corps of Engineers and spend the money saved on more foreign wars!