On this page we continue with Jerry Flack's reviews... Jonathan Weinberg's  Male Desire: The Homoerotic in Male Art & Peter Kuhnst, Editor  Physique: Classic Photographs of Naked Athletes

Male Desire: The Homoerotic in American Art. by JonathanWeinberg New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc., 2005. ISBN: 0810958945 Male Desire is quite simply the most beautiful art book ever created to celebrate the male figure. Jonathan Weinberg’s text is fascinating to read both in terms of the sense of history he provides and for his incisive views of what makes these remarkable homoerotic images such glorious works of art. He also explores the American cultural and moral climate that have kept many of these magnificent works of art hidden from the public for far too long. All of the photographs and paintings are masterfully reproduced on thick, high-quality paper in the oversize art volume. Every photograph and painting (220 illustrations, 128 in full color) in the whole is masterfully reproduced with a brilliance of color and clarity of image and vision that is rarely seen in art books, all the better to show off the splendor of the representative art Weinberg has carefully chosen. Weinberg’s stunning tribute to artists who have celebrated the male figural form in exceptional homoerotic art begins with extraordinary book design. Harold Stevenson’s The New Adam. 1962. Oil on canvas, 8 x 39 feet, 9 panels, wrap around both the front and back of the handsome dust jacket of the oversize book (11.5 x 9.5 inches), and then continue in a stroke of monumental visual impact to further serve as the end pages, both front and back. The grandeur of the book is not only astounding to view from the first moment readers hold it in their hands, Male Desire is filled with fascinating inside information vast audiences of GLBT and straight readers are unlikely to know. For example, Weinberg is not afraid to toss in a bit of artists’ “insider” information to keep the narrative both lively and informative. (Indeed, Weinberg staunchly argues that his work is not another art history tome.) For example, although Stevenson’s heroic and gargantuan 9-panel painting (rarely seen, previously) was a tribute to his lover, readers learn that the secret model for this incredible masterpiece of erotic art was the actor Sal Mineo. Harry N. Abrams is perhaps the supreme art book publisher in the world, so it is not surprising that the book continues to dazzle readers with each turn of the page. After encountering Stevenson’s monumental work on the cover and again in the end pages, readers turn to the title pages that are simply breath-taking. The double-spread title pages are illustrated with the “triptych” of full-length nudes of Jared French’s identical size, medium, and poses of Glenway Wescott, George Platt Lynes, and Monroe Wheeler. French rendered the three portraits identical except for the three individual subjects (all intimate friends in the arts with the painter) and slightly varied backgrounds. The medium is egg tempera on gesso on linen mounted to panels, and all three paintings are exactly 16  1/2  x 7 1/4 inches. At first glance, French’s incredible trio of portraits have an erotic male sensitivity that seems as heroic as Greek antiquity, but another glance compels readers to be astonished that such modernism was possible as early as 1940 when the paintings were created. The bold willingness of the subjects to pose fully nude six and one-half decades past leaps into the consciousness of the viewer, communicating their complete lack of shame –indeed, even their pride, of the erotic male nude figures they represented. They appear confident and proud of their masculinity as exposed in their triple, identical portraits. Sixty-five years ago these American models, each a great man in the most prestigious inner circles of New York City arts and publishing, was making a statement that the male nude was the highest form of masculine magnificence and not something, which one should be ashamed of or hide. Weinberg discusses French’s “triptych” of the full-length nude poses of Wescott, Platt Lynes, and Wheeler in substantial detail in the later chapter of the book, “Measurements and Circles” (p. 95). Weinberg organizes the content of Male Desire primarily in a chronological order beginning with the chapter “Water” that particularly highlights the great early photographer and painter Thomas Eakins. From his tribute to Eakins and other sculptors, painters, and photographers who have portrayed the male figure, he proceeds through such chapter as “The Man in Uniform,” “I Want Muscle,” “Measurements and Circles,” “Collaborations,” the “New Adam,” “This Age of AIDS,” and an “Epilogue.” By beginning with Eakins, Weinberg uses his approximately 208 pages of text and art reproductions to cover the years 1884 to the present. The author makes no secret of his admiration for Eakins. He boldly states that Eakins’ 1884 oil on canvas painting, Swimming, is the “first important painting of a group of male nudes in American art, and it remains the greatest.” (p. 15). Weinberg’s tribute and exploration of Swimming brings out two of the book’s most outstanding features. First, Weinberg makes connections both planned and sometimes by chance between the intense realism of the camera and its artistic product, especially photographic realism, and its dramatic connectedness to painting. Chapter One, “Water,” opens with a beautiful reproduction of Eakins’ famed Swimming which moved the “innocent” American notion of boys skinny dipping at the old water hole to Eakins bold painting of six fully adult males swimming in the nude. But there is no full frontal nudity in the painting and the supposed innocence of male nudity in fraternal bathing is retained. However, what is found in the essay on Eakins’ greatness are the photographs taken for his studies to create Swimming with his male students and subjects at a local swimming hole. In the photograph, one of the participants is clearly and proudly displaying his manhood for all to see. This connection of photography to painting is seen nearly a century later in two completely different sources wherein the results seem absolutely identical save for the media utilized. The models appear to be dramatically parallel in looks and physical structure. Even the non-art expert can see easily identify the virtual mirror image and striking similarity between David Hockney’s homoerotic and beautiful Boy About to Take a Shower, 1964-69, when viewed side-by-side with a black-and-white photograph by Earl Deane’s Athletic Model Guild from the physical culture magazine Physique Pictorial, April, 1960 (pp. 140-41).  Just as Eakins painted his 1884 masterpiece Swimming based upon photographs of adult nude males, Hockney likewise appears to have artfully recreated an acrylic image on canvas that is nearly an exact image of Earl Deane’s photograph of a muscular model for a “muscle” magazine. The second virtue Weinberg brings to this gorgeous book in his initial tribute to Eakins is played over and over again throughout Male Desire. Again and again, in his studies of great American homoerotic art, Weinberg wonderfully highlights fine details extracted from the original paintings with the details often blown-up for even closer examinations of the great artists’ unique skills and talents. Even as a complete reproduction of Eakins’ full painting, Swimming, is reproduced along side the photography with full frontal nudity, the following two pages are glorious blow-ups of particular features of the painting noted in close-ups. The practice of selecting details from specific paintings to help readers better “see” or understanding great American art is perhaps most masterfully discovered in Pavel Tchelitchew’s Lincoln Kirsten portrait in oil. Tchelitchew paints Kirsten posed in the foreground fully clothed and athletic-appearing in what appears to be a collegiate or varsity jacket.  His head is shaved and the painting looks remarkably fresh and as if Kirsten is a tough, “don’t mess with me guy” of today’s men’s magazine covers, even though the work was painted in 1937. However, in the same portrait, but in the background, Kirsten is seen a second time as a nude boxer. Two full pages of details follow the initial reproduction of the portrait. The reader is so overwhelmed by the beauty and size of these reproductions of erotic details that he or she senses being in a museum, standing directly in front of the painting and studying its every fine detail and brush stroke. Another excellent example of the skilled and wondrous handling of the reproduction of both full paintings and details from them is to be found in the chapter, “The Men in Uniform,” with analogous treatment of Paul Cadmus’ “notorious” oil on canvas painting The Fleet’s In, 1934. It is not with paintings alone that Male Desire captures such stunning detail and “close-up” feelings or sensations. Weinberg provides or applies the same scrutiny to the photographer George Platt Lynes, especially with Lynes’ Four Male Nudes, 1941. After the full photograph is displayed, the following two pages (88, 89) divide the gelatin silver print vertically to reveal even larger and more in-depth views of the images for closer observation. Weinberg also treats F. Holland Day’s Nude Male Youth, 1907, a platinum print in the same fashion. The whole is followed up immediately with stunning close-ups of details of Day’s late adolescent model that represent a masculine ideal the great photographer was striving to achieve. The artists represented in Male Desire constitute a who’s who of American male artists in the past 120 years. Besides those already noted, Weinberg shows off the works of Charles DeMuth, John Singer Sargent (represented with a particularly exquisite plein-air painting Tommies Bathing, 1918), Marsden Hartley, Rockwell Kent, Grant Wood, Winslow Homer, John Stuart Curry, Jasper Johns, Paul Wonner, Theophilus Brown, Andy Warhol, Andrew Raftery, Keith Haring, Wynn Chamberlin, and Daniel Heyman. The final painting is the author’s Two Surfers Dressing, 2003.  Photographers of note begin with Eakins and proceed to include F. Holland Day, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lyle Ashton Harris, Mark Morrisroe, and John Patrick Dugdale. While many art books tend to shun photography as a great art form, Weinberg gives virtually as much space and near reverence to photographers Duane Michals and Jack Pierson as he does to eminent painters and sculptors. For readers, such as this reviewer, who are not artists and are unfamiliar with the vast media creators have had at their disposal, Male Desire, intentionally or not, aides readers in becoming considerably more familiar with the means and methods great artists have used to rejoice in the form of the male figure. The medium of every single piece of art is clearly identified so that even lay readers may come to appreciate the variance between Thomas Eakins’ oil on canvas and Paul Cadmus’ egg tempera on composition board.  The artistic media and processes utilized by artists over the 120-year period include oil on everything from Masonite-type hardboard to linen and canvas, egg tempera, oil and tempera on canvas, graphite (Tom of Finland, especially), lithography, wood engravings, pencil on paper and pen and ink, collage, copper plate engraving, watercolors, and even movie stills (Andy Warhol). Marble and bronze are among the materials diverse sculptors have utilized. As scholarly and handsomely produced as Male Desire is, it would be erroneous to suggest that this is a book only for art collectors. The reproductions in this magnificent volume are masculine, erotic, and downright sexually exciting. After all, neither reviewers or readers should forget the provocative subtitle: The Homoerotic in American Art. One of this author’s favorite American artists is Marsden Hartley, a contemporary of Georgia O’Keeffe, who painted both in Maine and in the American Southwest. His hyper-masculine subjects are awesome in their raw and unequivocal sexuality. The reproduction of Hartley’s 40 x 30 inch Madawaska—Acadin Light-Heavy, 1940, Oil on Masonite-type hardboard is simultaneously stunning and provocative art as well as an incredibly sexy and erotic image. For far too long, the gay man’s idea of homoerotic art may well have been the nudes found in Honcho Magazine and its many imitators. Theophilus Brown’s super-charged erotic painting of an athlete’s victory celebration of masturbation while posed nude on top of one of his teammates, (Untitled, 1975), easily tops any scene choreographed and photographed for Honcho. With the publication of Male Desire: The Homoerotic in American Art, Weinberg has made it abundantly clear that whole schools of art exist in the broad classification of the male figure, and especially the homoerotic content found within the works of some of the greatest artists ever to work in America. Gay men no longer need to hide copies of  Inches, Playguy, and Mandate under the mattress. Jonathan Weinberg has given them a truly beautiful book to proudly display on the coffee table, even when Mom and Dad are coming over for dinner. Male Desire really has just that kind of class! Its hallmarks are elegance, stylishness, sophistication, class, and homoeroticism. Although Weinberg denies that Male Desire is an art history tome, his master work is far, far more than “eye candy” for gay guys. First, the artistic masterpieces reproduced in the book are in no way comparable with images found in gay porn magazines and books. Second, the author’s claim notwithstanding, the level of art history scholarship is of the highest order. In addition to a finely written epilogue, Weinberg’s “Notes” for each chapter are extensive and extremely helpful notes for scholars, and they are not in short supply. For chapter five, “Collaborators,” alone, he cites 33 references. The list of illustrations is equally scholarly and complete and the volume is particularly well indexed. Male Desire is a tremendous resource that belongs not just in every gay man’s library. It belongs in the library of every lover of the human body as an art form whether male or female, straight or GLBT. It is a magnificent achievement of astonishing beauty rarely seen in either gay or art book collections. Physique: Classic Photographs of Naked Athletes Editor, Peter Kuhnst New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004 ISBN: 050028475X When readers finds a book complete with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the current Republican governor of California, photographed nude by the great photographer Annie Leibovitz and deliberately posed semi-nude by no less than photographer bad boy, the late Robert Mapplethorpe, they know they have purchased a bargain to treasure for the ages, or at least this book season! Truthfully, the Schwarzenegger photographs are among the least interesting in this noteworthy book of  black-and-white photography (176 pages, 158 illustrations) that has as its foremost virtue the equal representation of the nude or semi-nude female form along side the male Greek-like gods of the past century and one half. Mapplethorpe and company provided the gods; now Kuhnst provides the goddesses, too. The singular most dramatic feature of Physique is its splendidly equal treatment of women. Women are as well represented as men in nude and semi-nude dance and athletic photographic poses, many of which will startle readers with their amazing freshness. Pyramid, c. 1923 (Anonymous) is an artistic framing of three nude women that appears as new as if it had been photographed within the past year. The “LBTQ” persons of the “GLBTQ” equation will find as much to like about Physique as the  “G” guys. In the approximately 150 years represented by the photographs in Kuhnst’s volume, women are posed in somewhat delicate positions as one might expect during the Victorian era, but from the beginning of the 20th century onward, the female body form is photographed equally as athletically as its male counterpart. The photographs are divided between action shots and studio-inspired positions. One of the most elegant female stances is Rudolf Koppitz’s 1927 Motion Study (p. 86) that features a trio of three stationary-positioned women draped in dark veils holding up an artfully posed and stunningly beautiful female nude. An equally handsome pose is found in the innocence of another Koppitz photograph of a fully nude but enfolded form of a youthful lad in an innocent Arcadian stance naturally positioned between two giant trees with snow-capped mountains in the distance. The naturally tree-framed beauty of the youth, In the  Lap of Nature was created in 1925. (p. 90) Although athletes form the body of the subjects in Physique, naturists and dancers also are included sublimely and occasionally to provoke amazement if not outright laughter. Nude males, refreshed by the morning waters, worshiping and praying to the sun (p. 114) exude reverence just as Elli Souyoultzoglou’s action portrait of The Dancer Nikolska in the Parthenon,  photographed in 1927 (p. 88) and Herbert List’s nude in Beneath the Temple of Poseidon 1937 (p. 116) both radiate emotions classically Greek. However, some of the photographs inspired by the physical culture movement in the early decades of the 20th century today appear unintentionally absurd or humorous, such as G. A. Berner’s 1930 photograph In the Fresh Air (p. 9) that portrays a male and female couple skiing in the Alps wearing only ski socks and boots for clothing. Kuhnst’s rationale is boldly stated immediately on the inside of the book jacket paperback flap:   "The history of sports is also a history of nude photography, sports, and games – indeed all forms of physical culture – have always been practiced in a state of at least semi-nudity, yet never before have both been the sensual and erotic aspects of sports been celebrated with such enthusiasm." Although at times, readers may feel somewhat voyeuristic, the images Peter Kuhnst has compiled are so breath-taking and compelling that they possess a visual magnetism that is simply impossible to ignore or pretend not to enjoy. One views the richly reproduced images of this book unquestionably believing that the human form is God’s greatest achievement. That the physique of a great athlete or dancer in peak form is an almost unearthly wonder. Let it be said plainly and unequivocally. Unless one is so ashamed of the male and female physical forms God gave to humans, this book is not remotely close to representing pornography. Although the images are beautiful, handsome, and erotic, to label Physique merely “eye candy” is to grossly undervalue its contribution to photographic art studies. The premier figural photographers of America and Europe and their superb works for the past 150 years are on display in gloriously produced reproductions of their amazing works from motion studies to body art culture. Moreover, the photographs are handsomely reproduced. The precision and clarity of the reproductions is first rate. The weight and texture of the paper upon which the historic images are printed is superlative. Physique is photographic ART at its finest. One particular demonstration of this fact is the line-up of the world’s greatest photographers, past and present, whose works are represented: Eadweard Muybridge, Thomas Eakins, Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, Leni Riefenstahl, Harold Edgerton, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Edward Steichen, Kurt Reichert, Greg Gorman, Annie Leibovitz, Herbert List, Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and especially (Jonathan) Anderson & (Edwin) Low’s whose combined volumes Gymnasts: Earth, Air, Water, Fire & Athletes (Twin Palms Publishers, 2002) are tapped often to produce images that present nude Danish gymnasts especially graced with the seeming power to defy gravity and soar above the earth, literally circling on air currents. Anderson & Low’s companion volume, Athletes, presents a global perspective of Olympic (Olympians) competitors in the three years immediately prior to the 2000 Games in Sydney. All are athletes at peak conditioning from all over the globe. Just as Jonathan Weinberg succeeds in doing in Male Desire (Abrams, 2005), Kuhnst notes the important contributions photography has made to other art forms. Indeed, he, too, uses both Eakins (pp. 40-41) and Hockney (pp. 160-61) as his examples. The photographs and methods are different but the fusion of the camera and other art media to create art is once again recognized. Peter Kuhnst, a German professor of sports science, attempts (and succeeds) to weave together three divergent strands into one miraculous tapestry to display the development of the history of photography, the classical beauty of and appreciation for the human body (most particularly early 20th century European Naturism), and the evolution of sports, particularly those games especially performed in complete or near nudity such as track and field events and how these three threads have formed an ever-growing representation of physical perfection in the past one and one-half century. Tragically, he also points out how Hitler borrowed (or stole) the innocence and good health features of early 20th century European Naturism and perverted its positive attributes to fit his obsession with an insane attempt to promote both nationalism and, most tragically, a belief in a superior race of people. Certainly, one casualty of this perversion is the damage that has been done to the legacy of the great photographer, Leni Riefenstahl, one of the greatest photographers of all time, male or female. Her magnificent photographic image of a full length nude woman in peak physical condition, Greeting the Sun (n.d.) may well be the most beautiful image in the entire volume, Physique. Of course, if a “best” photograph debate arises, Riefenstahl’s image would have to compete with Low & Anderson’s Sky #18 in which a nude Danish gymnast becomes, for the shutter’s moment, the Icarus of today. (p. 132)   But, such a debate misses the mark. The glory of Physique is that BOTH images are present. Regardless of whichever photograph is penultimate, the whole of Physique: Classic Photographs of Naked Athletes is yet another artistic masterpiece of book making that both lesbians and gays should add to their personal libraries. It is a volume of exceptional beauty. Most recently a trip to a book store specializing in fine books for people of sexual diversity by this writer resulted in locating only male nude art photography volumes. Physique is ground breaking in changing that circumstance. Peter Kuhnst has not only produced a masterful fifteen-decade examination of the male and female nudes in athletics, he has opened what hopefully will be the way for similar books to appear that either share equal space with nude men and women athletes or provide completely feminine art photography. God’s beauty in creating the perfect human form is not biased in favor of men alone. Note from IGW...we sincerely hope that readers will write to Jerry Flack to let him know how thoroughly and enjoyably he has presented the information about these two art books. You can contact Jerry, here.

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