Gay Art. James Smalls
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as the word of choice because many gay activists felt that ‘homosexual’ was too clinical and associated with medical pathology. By the time of the Stonewall riots in 1969, ‘gay’ was the dominant term of expressing sexual identity for a group of younger, more overtly political homosexual activists. In contrast to ‘homosexual’, ‘gay’ was thought to express the growing political consciousness of the gay liberation movement. ‘Gay’, like ‘homosexual’ can refer to both men and women. However, some women have taken issue with their implied exclusion from the category ‘gay’ and have preferred the designation ‘lesbian’. This haggling over names and labels is a very significant part of the history of homosexuality. The ‘lesbian’ over ‘gay’ debate reveals that the relation between homosexual identity and gender identity has always been vexed. In this book, I refrain from using the word ‘gay’ until after 1969 and the rise in political awareness over these terms.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the use of the word ‘gay’ increased. Almost every political and social organisation that had anything to do with the gay liberation movement used the word ‘gay’, or a variation thereof, in their organisation’s title. In recent years, some members of the gay community have rejected the designation ‘gay’ in favour of ‘queer’ – a term of inclusivity that refers to all non-heterosexual persons and categories. [For a history of change in name designation from ‘homosexual’ to ‘queer’, see Haggerty, pp.362–63; for summary of the word ‘queer’, see Daniel F. Pigg, ‘Queer’, in Haggerty, pp.723–24]. The word ‘queer’ had existed and had been used as a term of ostracism and pathology against homosexual men since the 1910s. It was during the 1990s that ‘queer’ was appropriated by some gay men who wanted to set themselves apart from a gay culture that they believed had sold out to the status quo and had become accommodationist.
Now that I have familiarised the reader with certain definitions, terms, and concepts associated with homosexuality, some other important and difficult questions relevant specifically to homosexuality in art still remain. For instance, on what basis do we decide that a work of art is about homosexuality? For example, is an image of two male nudes or two female nudes standing in close proximity to one another about homosexuality? Is it necessary that works of art exhibit overt or explicit homosexual themes to be about homosexuality? Is it the subject matter or is it the sexual orientation or identity of the artist that is crucial to an understanding of his or her art? What is the role of the viewer in determining if a work of art has a homosexual theme? What is the significance and underlying ‘message’ of homosexuality in art across cultures and across centuries? Does homosexuality confer upon artists a different vision of the world, perhaps with its own sensibilities? Although these questions are important, it is unwise to seek a single definitive response to them, for homosexuality as both label and idea is much too diverse, complex and varied to be reduced to one answer. Homosexuality “crosses all borders and is included in a range of visual and physical objects that symbolise and communicate feelings and values” (Saslow, p.2). Homosexuality is a diverse concept that refers to a range of feelings and emotions. Its meaning will vary for different people at different times and in different cultures. What is clear is that homosexuality can not and should not be minimised or limited to sexual behaviour alone.
Although there are many images in this book of men and women engaged in explicit same-sex acts, it is not intended simply as a picture-book of sexual activities. Indeed, the complexity of homosexuality as a term and concept reveals that it is more than purely the physical sex act. Gay Art ventures beyond images of sex. It is simultaneously centred on the multitude of emotional and psychological feelings, needs, and desires between members of the same sex. As art historian James Saslow has noted, “homosexuality” is as ambiguous and flexible as the term “love” (Saslow, p.7). The images in this book expose some of the ways that these acts, feelings, needs, and desires are manifested visually.
Because of the breadth of cultures and art represented here as well as the cultural and social complexities associated with homosexuality as label and concept, Gay Art is only able to give a broad overview of homosexuality in visual culture and an impressionistic sweep of images across centuries and regions. It is not intended as a comprehensive written or visual text on the topic. However, even cursory treatment of the subject should interest anyone and everyone who cares to delve into the complicated and inextricably linked worlds of human sexuality and human creativity.
06. George Platt Lynes, Nicholas Magallanas andFrancisco Moncion in Poses from Orpheus, 1948.
Photograph. Ballet Society.
07. Euaion Painter, Erastes and a Young Musician, c. 460 BC.
Red figure dish. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Chapter 1 – Homosexuality in Western Antiquity (from Ancient Greece to the Roman Empire)
The earliest Greeks were a loose band of rural tribes who eventually settled into small enclaves known as city-states. The practice of overt homosexuality was already widespread in the Greek city-states by the early part of the sixth century BC and became an integral part of the Greek archaic and classical traditions. Male homosexuality, or rather pederasty, was linked with military training and the initiation of young boys into citizenship. Most of our information about Greek homosexuality is based on the art, literature, and mythology from the city-state of Athens. Exactly why the Athenians of the fourth century BC accepted homosexuality and conformed so readily to a homoerotic ethos is a question difficult to answer. Although each city-state imposed distinct laws and practised different mores, Sparta, Thebes, Crete, Corinth and others all bear visual and literary evidence of homosexual interests and practices. The earliest evidence of homoerotic relations in ancient Greece comes from a fragment written by the historian Ephorus of Kyme (c.405–330 BC) telling the story of an ancient ritual that took place on Dorian Crete in the seventh century BC in which older men initiated younger men into manly pursuits like hunting, feasting, and presumably, sexual relationships as well (Lambert in Haggerty, p.80).
The extent to which homosexuality in the ancient world was a significant aspect of Greek culture can be found in their myths, rites and rituals, legends, art and literature, and in the customs of society as a whole. The major artistic and literary sources on Greek homosexuality are found in late archaic and early classical poetry, the comedic plays of Aristophanes and others such as Euripedes, Aeschylus, and Sophocles; the dialogues of Plato, and paintings on Greek vases (Dover, p.9). It was in the writings of Plato (c.429–347 BC) above all where the topic of homosexual love was debated most vigorously. In his dialogues, Plato focused on male homosexuality, seeing it as a higher spiritual goal than heterosexual physical contact and procreation. The three famous dialogues of Plato – the Lysis, Phaedrus, and Symposium – narrate imaginary and sometimes ironic conversations about male sexual and erotic relations (Jordan in Haggerty, p.695). Many of the passages in these dialogues describe male love as paiderasteia (pederasty) – that is, the erotic, active love of an adult man for a beautiful, passive adolescent [the word paiderasteia is derived from pais (boy) and eran (to love)]. In the Lysis and Symposium, Socrates (a protagonist in the dialogues) is characterised as the active pursuer of adolescent male beauty. For Socrates, (homo) eros was the search for noble aims in thought and in action. Exactly how the practice of pederasty developed in ancient Greece is disputed, but the surviving mythology from antiquity suggests that Minos, the king of Crete, introduced it to avoid overpopulation of his island.
Athenian society viewed paiderasteia as a principal means of education and socialisation of young free-born boys into manhood and citizenship. As an institution, it served as a complement, not a rival, to heterosexual marriage.
Although the term ‘pederast’ is today pejorative and refers primarily to sexual predators, in ancient Greece the term carried no such negative connotation and was employed in the context of the erastes-eromenos relationship. In this relationship, an older man (the erastes or lover [‘inspirer’ in Sparta]), usually bearded and of high social rank, was expected to actively seek out, then win over a youth (an eromenos, or the beloved [the ‘hearer’ in Sparta]) and instil in him an understanding and respect