[boys-on-canvas]

#3: King Balthazar/Casper from St Joseph and King Balthazar/Casper (Saint-Joseph et le roi Gaspard) by Pieter Coecke van Aelts (between 1525-50)

This image I captured in Grenoble is a bit of a controversial one. Was it made by Coecke van Aelts himself, or was it *only* done in his highly prestigious workshop? Does it actually depict king Balthazar or Casper?

Well… I suppose this was meant to be a triptych but the middle just got excluded. Coecke van Aelts also seemed to be a massive fan of depicting ‘The Magi visiting the Messiah’, as multiple such paintings are connected to him/his workshop. On a more personal note, when I saw this one in the museum it struck me immediately. The face so effeminate and smooth, the eyes sparkling, the beautiful earring! I had to find out more about him! Although the title of this work is displayed as ‘St Joseph and King Casper’, according to my research it’s more likely to be depicting king Balthazar. In the middle-ages, the three Magi came to symbolize the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa — hence why they were depicted as different races. Now, French historians such as Daniel Arasse and Michel Tournier thought Casper (Gaspard) was representing the ‘black Magi’. This has turned out to be false. But could explain why the title is so strange. Further ‘fun facts’ about King Balthazar’s image in Medieval art: it was firstly the Flemish who depicted him as African, which then became popular in Italy too. He is considered to be the youngest (previously, it was Casper) and most beautiful Magi. His youth and beauty were often combined with having a luxurious taste — his character donning luxurious clothes and accessories in paintings. An image that has caught my eyes during research was Hans Memling’s Triptych of Jan Floreins. Such a beautiful boy depicted in that too!

Sources:

passagedutemp.com/2020/10/15/balthazar-le-mage-noir/

comment.org/the-blackening-of-balthazar/

[boys-on-canvas]

#2: Béni Ferenczy from Double Portrait (Béni and Noémi) by Károly Ferenczy (1908)

This painting would haunt me every time I’d go to the Hungarian National Gallery. I dubbed it “the painting with the pretty boy in the sweater”. In reality, this is a double portrait of the painter’s 18 year old twin children Béni and Noémi. Both of them became artists.

Always reminded me of a passage from Death in Venice by Thomas Mann:

“He was further struck by the obviously intentional contrast with the principles of upbringing which showed in the sisters' attire and bearing. The three girls, the eldest of whom could be considered grown up, were dressed with a chasteness and severity bordering on disfigurement. Uniformly cloister-like costumes, of medium length, slate-coloured, sober, and deliberately unbecoming in cut, with white turned-down collars as the only relief, suppressed every possible appeal of shapeliness. Their hair, brushed down flat and tight against the head, gave their faces a nunlike emptiness and lack of character. Surely this was a mother's influence, and it had not even occurred to her to apply the pedagogical strictness to the boy which she seemed to find necessary for her girls. It was clear that in his existence the first factors were gentleness and tenderness. The shears had been resolutely kept from his beautiful hair; like a Prince Charming's, it fell in curls over his forehead, his ears, and still deeper, across his neck. The English sailor suit, with its braids, stitchings, and embroideries, its puffy sleeves narrowing at the ends and fitting snugly about the fine wrists of his still childish but slender hands, gave the delicate figure something rich and luxurious. He was sitting, half profile to the observer, one foot in its black patent-leather shoe placed before the other, an elbow resting on the arm of his wicker chair, a cheek pressed against his fist, in a position of negligent good manners, entirely free of the almost subservient stiffness to which his sisters seemed accustomed.”

[boys-on-canvas]

#1: Saint Quentin from Virgin and Child Flanked by Sts Benedict and Quentin by Francesco Marmitta, from the 1st quarter of the 16th century. (The painting was formerly attributed to a painter by the surname Bianchi)

In his work Certains (Certain Artists in the English translation) 1889, French art critic Joris-Karl Huysmans describes Saint Quentin as an: ‘ephebe’ with an uncertain gender, a hybrid of mysterious beauty.

“His long brown locks torrenting over an iron armored bust […] And what to make of that adorable face whose features have been veiled by an unquenchable sorrow? What to make of those clear eyes, whose blue color seems to be fading… as if covered by mud? — These are not the penitent and pure eyes of St Benedict, clear and cold like fresh spring water. These eyes burn to be led into temptations that will ultimately cause downfall. These pupils of troubled waters, when they calm they reflect back the rusty-brown color of the autumn sky. These are belligerent pupils that are hardly subdued by the feeling of remorse/penitence after a sin. The saint’s appearance alone is mesmerizing. These boyish features, this slightly developed hips, this girlish neck with flesh as pale as elderberry flowers, cunning predatory lips, slim waist, provocative fingers resting upon his weapon, the bulge in the breastplate which swells in the place of breasts and protects the exposed sloping of the bust, that piece of cloth exposed from under the armpit (between shoulder pad and gorget), even the blue ribbon tied onto him that a girl child would wear are haunting. All frantic assimilations of Sodom came together to create this androgyne, whose insinuating beauty (now sore) had already emerged as purified, as if transfigured by the deliberate approach of a God. […] A hermaphrodite armed in iron, a knight who’s consumed by lust and suffers under the weight of his sorrow.”

Certains, 222-225