John Singer Sargent: The Male Nudes
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Individual Artists
John Singer Sargent: The Male Nudes Details
Amazon.com Review The beauty and gentle eroticism of John Singer Sargent's paintings and drawings of nude males are the raison d'être of this otherwise somewhat slight book. Most are exquisitely languid, with such tender touches as a pink tinge on the buttocks of a boy lying prone on a beach in Capri, or two intimate "tommies"--privates in the World War I British Army--napping on a riverbank after a swim, heads together. Then there are a few nude wrestling matches, à la Eadweard Muybridge and D.H. Lawrence. And, as the author somewhat frantically insists, there are works that possess an "uplifting and spiritual aspect." The wonder is that Sargent's sisters preserved these works--which the artist had kept private--after his death. They are thrilling, as much for Sargent's astonishing facility with a brushload of color as for the sensuous subjects. The essay may be skipped by readers who wince when informed that any subject of a society portrait by Sargent was "transformed into a fashionable denizen of the Edwardian age, whomever he was." Author John Esten sniffs prissily at the suggestion that Sargent may have harbored homoerotic feelings, while the works themselves often unabashedly focus on the genitalia of the models, and the ones that don't are filled with the kind of closeness and warmth of observation that makes the model's soft skin seem almost palpable. Linger over the book's 18 color plates, which are a lasting, luscious pleasure; the scores of black-and-white drawings are similarly inspired. --Peggy Moorman Read more About the Author John Esten created and designed many books including Man Ray/Bazaar Years, Manhattan Style, and Hampton Style. A former art director at Harper's Bazaar and L'Officiel USA magazines, he has been a special consultant to the Grey Gallery of New York University, as well as guest curator at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York, and the International Center of Photography, New York.Donna Hassler is an art historian specializing in American drawing and sculpture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She was assistant curator at the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and served as the acting director and curator of the Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, New York. Ms. Hassler is currently executive director of the Rennsselaer County Historical Society, Troy, New York. She is coauthor of the forthcoming book American Sculpture in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Artists Born by 1885. Read more
Reviews
It's hard to believe there was a time when the images in this book would have been considered pornographic. But if Singer's portrait of Madame Pierre Gautreau ("Madame X") was considered scandalous because he painted her with a dropped shoulder strap (later repainted in its proper position), then you can understand why these male nudes (mostly charcoal sketches and quick watercolors, but also some finished oil paintings) were kept unexhibited for so long. We have Sargent's sisters to thank that they were not destroyed outright, but carefully placed with museums for safekeeping.If text is the clothing of art books, then Donna Hassler has provided THE MALE NUDES with less than a loin cloth. But there's not much that needs to be said, anyway. The plates should be enjoyed in their own right. I especially enjoyed the charcoal drawings. They are contextless and their strong outlines give them extra punch and a sense of iconic completeness. Though well rounded and subtly shaded, they remind me somehow of Jean Cocteau's spirited line drawings. The watercolors reminded me of Winslow Homer's. All in all, a nice little book.