Classical art pieces showing gay couples

[frumosfatih]

Young male beloveds in Persian miniature by Mirza Agha Emami, Iran, late 14th century.

Something sweet about male love in Ottoman Albania, just for the aesthetics of the gracious picture:

     “…Outside the town, where every afternoon lovers gather behind the tall trees and in the shady spots and flirt with their beloveds. It is a delightful gathering place for men of culture. Here, countless love-stricken young men come to sing love songs to the handsome boys they adore, whose red lips are like roses and cherries. They pour out their emotions so sweetly and sadly that the nightingales get tongue-tied with admiration. In every corner there is flirtation and fun and drinking and carousing, with music and singing and other entertainments day and night, like New Year’s eve”.

—Evliya Celebi (1511-1682)

[classical-gay-art]

Armand Point, Golden legend (1897)

[secretlesbians]

Gustave Courbet, Le Sommeil,1866.

Le Sommeil [The Sleepers], which depicts two women entwined in a post-coital embrace, caused a stir when it was first shown in the 1870s. The police were called in, and the painting was not shown again until the 1980s. But its brief showing had an influence on a number of contemporary artists, and helped challenge the taboos associated with lesbian relationships. For modern audiences it’s a good reminder that people in the 19th century were not ignorant of lesbian relationships, as we tend to believe. And it’s pretty damn sexy, don’t you think?

[daggers-drawn]

They called the police on this lesbian painting.

[hierophage-deactivated20181225]

My favorite Fayum portrait is this Antinoöpolitan tondo done in the Fayum funerary style often called “The Two Brothers” (although there is some scholars who suggest that the relationship may have been more intimate). This was meant to be broken in two so that each portrait could be included as the face of the mummy. The gods on either side are interesting as they are both most likely syncretic deities with Hermanubis on the right and Osirantinoos on the left. These two handsome men stare across the ages to me.

[insipit]

Max Volkhart (1848–1924, Germany)

Max Volkhart was a German genre painter and etcher of the Düsseldorf School. His paintings tend to show uncomplicated scenes of daily life from the 18th and 19th centuries.

[insipit]

Frank Dicksee (Francis Bernard Dicksee) (1853–1928, Engand)

Genre scenes

Frank Dicksee was a prominent English Victorian painter and illustrator. The son of Thomas Francis Dicksee, a noted painter of Shakespearean characters, he is best known for his pictures of dramatic literary, historical, and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time.

His style was not fully within other popular modes of the time, such as Pre-Raphaelism or Neoclassicism, and can be seen as a fusion of various methods and aesthetics of his time, including later in life utilising post-Romantic techniques such as lighter brushwork and softer shades.

[hadrian6]

Detail : Death of Hyacinth. 1830.  Merry Joseph Blondel. French 781-1853. oil/canvas.    http://hadrian6.tumblr.com

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) “Scène d'été” or “Summer Scene” (1869) Oil on canvas Impressionism Located in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Bazille achieved the look he wanted for the painting by first drawing the human figures in his Paris studio and then transferring the drawings to the outdoor setting.

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Eugene de Blaas (1843-1932) “Gathering Shells” Oil on canvas Academicism

[theartsyproject]

Francis Bacon, Two Men on a Bed, 1953.

[egonschiele-art]

Two Girls on a Fringed Blanket 1911

Egon Schiele

[classiclesbians]

Two Women Embracing by Egon Schiele, 1911

[flora-de-si]

Two Girls (Lovers) (1911), Egon Schiele

[die-rosastrasse]

Édouard Bisson 

French, 1856-1939 

Love’s Messengers , Two Maidens, The Three Graces (details)

[classiclesbians]

The Kiss by Joseph Granie, 1900

[vint-agge-xx]

Romanticism/ Was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. The aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, and the natural sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, and while for much of the Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was perhaps more significant.

[moncrieff-deactivated20180121]

the fall (detail)

alan stephens foster (1892-1969)