Gallery Four
INDEX:
Gallery One: Click HereGallery Two: Click Here
Gallery Three: Click Here
What is Good Art? Click Here
"Male Nude"
by Paul Cadmus, 1983
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Washington, DC
ay artists who painted for a straight world during the last half of the 20th Century often tried subtly to slip in a homosexual theme. No example is better than that of New York City born Paul Cadmus (1904-1999) and the events surrounding his most famous painting, The Fleet's In.
The history of the painting is a story in itself, and the Navy Historical website provides an interesting, humorous, and ironic history which is recorded at The Fleet's In History. The same US Navy which previously condemned the painting, now allows it to go on tour so you may get a chance to see it in your area.
The sad news about Paul Cadmus is that he could never talk publicly about the homosexual themes in his work. Nearly everyone knew he was gay and that he he had a lover. The two traveled through France in the 1930's where Cadmus was influenced by the old master painters. Returning to the US, he carried the onus of mid 20th Century homophobia. Looking at his art and his life style from the 21st Century, we may wonder why everyone did not know the man was homosexual. However, in his time, famous figures often felt their profession depended on keeping their sexuality a secret. Cadmus joined the ranks of closeted gay celebrities like Liberace and Rock Hudson. Nevertheless, his works oozed an undeniable gay theme as in Youth with a Kite, or even more overtly in this Male Nude. Paul Cadmus drew himself in 1940 and again in 1990, the year before he died. Self Drawing.
The last artist in this gallery was not a closeted gay at all, and certainly no one ever looked at his art without knowing that the subject was not just about men in general, but about gay men in particular. The artist was Touko Laaksonen (1920-1991), born in the village of Kaarina, Finland. He moved to Helsinki at nineteen to attend an art school where he created his first homoerotic drawings. Like many artists, Tom did not immediate support himself by his art. After serving in the army in World War II, he returned to work in advertising where, at the urging of friends, he continued to drawn homoerotic sketches.
It was not until 1957 that he was first published in an American magazine called: Physique Pictorial. At that time he took the name of Tom of Finland, and his career as a gay artist skyrocketed. His drawings were at first in gay venues, but soon they were in museums, and in 1991 just before his death, he was featured in a Finnish documentary entitled: Daddy and the Muscle Academy - The Art, Life, and Times of Tom of Finland.
This artist from Finland could not have arrived at a better time, artistically speaking. By the closing decades of the 20th Century, the art of nude men had gone full circle. New artistic ground was more like re-plowing old fields. A hundred years of the camera had taken its toll by exploring every new and exciting possibility. Cameras were cheap, could be owned by everyone, and could be carried places which would have been inconvenient if not impossible for an artist with paint and canvas, much less stone and chisel. Film was relatively inexpensive, and cameras could go everywhere in the world, even to the moon. A photographer could take dozens of pictures a day and choose the best whereas an artist might work weeks on a canvas before discarding it.
As far as stone sculptures, their expense and time consumption relegated that art to cathedrals. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC, was under construction for most of the 20th Century, and its stone artists had to be imported from Europe. There is not a nude on that cathedral except possibly a hint of one on a statue of Adam in a work of creation over the west door.
When Tom of Finland arrived on the scene, the art of nude males was ready for a change. Tom made that change and in a sense took up painting men without clothes where Michelangelo had left off. However, instead of painting nude Bible Characters, Angels, and Saints, Tom painted laborers, service men, bikers, policemen, weightlifters, truck drivers, and the not so saintly. Instead of painting men with flaccid penises, he painted them stone hard and very often in action.
In no way am I comparing the skill of the two painters. Rather I am saying that after ten of thousands of nude photos of men in every possible position and action, Tom was able to paint what Michelangelo could only dream of doing. For example, Michelangelo's great painting of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel originally was painted with a Nude Christ. Imagine if Michelangelo had been given full artistic freedom to sculpt a statue of David and Jonathan. (The one Biblical account of a homosexual relationship among heroes.) One can only dream what the gay artist would have done. Imagine the two men lying in each other's arms with semi hardons suggesting a period following hardy male sex! The artist who put dicks on the Sistine Chapel and balls on The David would not have hesitated to represent gay love in a homoerotic statue had he been allowed.
In a strange twist, Tom moved from drawing stereotypically effeminate men to men who were stereotypically macho. He seemed to have jumped over the middle class men in suits with average bodies and taken to the working class and men in the military and in leather. He went from dandies to soldiers.
Finally, there was humor in this artist's work. He had pictures not unlike the style of Norman Rockwell's American folksy art. Here is a a youth getting new clothes.
One of our Apollo Users met and talked with Tom of Finland, and here is what he reported:
On your study of Tom of Finland--I had the privilege of meeting him in person in 1988 or '89--in his home studio. A very gentle, lovable man. I was offering to write stories to go with his drawings (you speak of paintings, Ron--but, I am almost certain that virtually his entire work consisted of drawings); he informed me that "they" had tried adding text some years before, but it had flopped. (I can well understand why--with his wonderful drawings--who needs text?!) He added, "You know, " (this is not verbatim--I go by memory) "when I first started drawing those huge cocks, I thought I was exaggerating the size--but, since then, I have seen some that were at least that big." Tom of Finland's house was also equipped with a gym--complete with sling. I'm not into leather, slings, fist-fucking--whatever. I don't knock it--it simply doesn't turn me on. You will notice that the majority of Tom of Finland's characters wear leather--caps, jacket, pants, boots. |
In summary of Man without Clothes, I feel it needs to be repeated that art which moves a viewer religiously is no better or worse than art that moves a viewer sexually. Because of the long history of religion's monopolizing the arts and artists, there is a feeling in many people that religious art is somehow better than erotic art. The former is supposed to be spiritual and morally superior while the other is mundane and inferior. This position is without merit. If given a chance nearly everyone would choose as better art The Venice de Milo or The David, both of which reek of human sexuality, over the insipid statues of religious figures you see in the average large cathedral.
There are plenty of very bad religious paintings hanging on the walls of churches and art galleries, just as there is plenty of bad porno stacked in night stands by the beds of horny men. The subject does not determine the goodness and beauty of a work of art. What makes art good is how the artist is able to communicate a human experience to another human being. Art must reach man as a whole: body and spirit. It has taken nearly two millennia for artists outwardly and overtly to reach men sexually.
Tom of Finland went a step farther than reaching men sexually. In his lifetime he presented artistically a truth that he had discovered about men socially. He completely smashed the old icons of effeminate, gay men -the "molly" types left over from the 19th Century- who dressed in women's clothes, wore makeup, and adopted a helpless sex persona in order to attract "real men" with whom to have sex. Tom of Finland realized that sex between men was something that masculine men enjoyed. If his men are too muscular and their penises are too big, he is only artistically stating his point. One could rightly argue that no one has ever seen such large sexual equipment on men, but neither has anyone ever seen angel floating above the heads of dying saints, but medieval artists put them there, and no one complained that they were not "realistic." Photography can be art, but painting is not photography, and in the last half of the 20th Century, many artist began to realize that truth, and in the next posting, we will list some 20th Century artists and websites where their work can be viewed.
EPILOG:
For more pictures/paintings of nude men, see my own views at What Is Good Art?