Abel (2) by Vincent Emile Feugère des Forts

The other Abel sculpture I want to share is from the French sculptor Vincent Emile Feugères des Forts (1825-1889). His 'death of Abel' was first created in plaster, and he showed it at the 'Salon' in 1864, for which he got a medal. You can see the plaster sculpture in Chartres, at the 'Musée des Beaux- Arts'.
He then sculpted it in marble, and presented it two years later. It is a very sensual sculpture of a young man lying on the ground.

The marble sculpture is in Paris, at the Musée d'Orsay. A cast in bronze was reportedly also visible at the Chateau des Forts (Illiers), during the end of the 19th century but I could not find any trace of it.

In March 2007, the Musée d'Orsay, in his 'Correspondance' serie (in which an artist is invited to choose a Museum art piece and to present his work next to it), displayed the contemporary visions of the French artists Pierre & Gilles (previously mentioned in this blog here), who choose 'The death of Abel', and painted him, not once but 3 times, so as to give a 3D vision of this Abel, around his sculpture. An interesting way to see that sculpture with a new eye.

Here are the photographs of their 3 paintings, taken by 'Lunettes Rouges', an art blogger from the French newspaper 'Le Monde'.

Sources :

Wikipedia
Musée d'Orsay

Pierre & Gilles video interview (Italian & French)
The ''Amateur d'Art'' blog of Lunettes Rouges

Oreste, muscular young naked hero, by Pierre-Charles Simart

Pierre-Charles Simart is another French sculptor (1806-1857), born in Troyes, who moved to Paris at the age of 17, thanks to a scholarship. He won a Prix de Rome 9 years later.

Back from Rome, he sculpted major pieces in Paris such as a Napoleon statue, and several for the Louvres (Sully pavillion, Denon pavillion, ...). Among his teachers, lets name Ingres.
Simart himself also teached at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

The bronze sculpture below, in Troyes, is from the mythology story of Oreste, searching help from Pallas.

The same sculpture was sculpted in marble and is located in Rouen (below).

Oreste - marble statue - detail

  Below is an old drawing made by the French painter Paul Flandrin (1811-1902) who, like the sculptor Simart, had the same teacher (Ingres).

Drawing from Paul Flandrin (1811-1902).

 And a contemporary version was made by Pierre & Gilles, with their painted photography of Oreste in 2013, displayed at the Galerie Daniel Templon (Paris). The model was Staiv Gentis.

Oreste, by Pierre & Gilles, 2013.

Sources:

Wiki source

Extrait de la Revue des Deux Mondes 

Eternal Optimist

St Sebastien, gay icon (3) in contemporary paintings, photographs, stained glass etc.



Today, ie during 20th & 21st century, Sebastien's portrays continue to show him often in a kind of submissive, young muscular body. Look at some photographs from F. Holland Day (USA), who imagined the martyr based on working-class youths, and those of David Vance, von Gloeden, Mishima.


F Holland Day

David Vance

Wilhem von Gloeden

Yukio Mishima

And the illustration for the movie Sebastiane by Derek Jarman, in which the only language spoken is latin.

Also the paintings from Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau (France), Anto Carte below.

Odilon Redon

 

Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau

Anto Carte (1886 1954) c.1934

Interesting are the works of Salvador Dali, Egon Schiele, Keith Haring...


Salvador Dali

Egon Schiele - Self portrait as St Sébastien 1915 Vienna Austria

Keith Haring

And the other various contemporary artists that you can see below also contributed to make St Sébastien a real gay icon.

Soungouroff (1911-1982) c. 1947

Demard Philippe (1959- ) French.

Diego Tolomelli, Italian artist, has created many religious stained-glass works, and also many homoerotic subjects, including the below St Sébastien. Last month, the Dutch art gallery Mooiman, mentioned previously on this blog, displayed a full exhibition about these homoerotic stained-lass works, mainly young men, some embracing passionately. The Avocate interviewed him last month.

Diego Tolomelli aka Iko

Ernesto Lozano (Mexico)

Kinu Sekigushi (France)

Maurice Heerdinck (Dutch)

Peter Colstee (Dutch) 1991



          

Alfred Courmes (1898-1993) French painter

In this selection, lets not forget Pierre et Gilles, the famous French artists (each piece is a unique painted large photograph) who created a serie of St Sébastien (6 of them are below). One of them also appeared on the cover of the recent exhibition catalogue 'Masculin Masculin' in Paris.

 

 

Pierre & Gilles artists in front of one of their St Sébastien.  (retrospective in Berlin, Germany).

Some more artists representations of St Sébastien.


Sadao Hasegawa

Sven de Rennes

In the next post, and to close this chapter, we will see some contemporary sculptures of St Sébastien.

 

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Sources and more info:

A stunning collection of contemporary représentations in these 2 blogs:

• http://arkos.blog2b.net/
• http://adherentsbdmonazur.blog2b.net/

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Ganymède, the cutest youg man on Earth (3) and contemporary media

Ganymede rapt has been depicted in many contemporary design, has been used as cover of books, in advertising, on lithographs etc. Here is a short selection.

Below is the Budweiser advertising of 1906, based on the engraving from the German illustrator Frank Kirchbach (1892).

Kenneth G. Kendall, from USA, was a sculptor and painter. He did some lithographs.
As he was also an actor in Hollywood, he used another actor, Steve Reeves, as model to do his Ganymede rapt drawing and lithograph seen below, in 1952.

Pierre & Gilles, famous artists from Paris, France, whose work has recently (Sept 2013-Jan 2014) been depicted, among others, during the Male art exhibition 'Masculin - Masculin' in the Orsay Museum, have created a serie of 3 drawings/paintings illustrating Ganymede's myth, as seen below.

(And it is also one of their work 'Mercure' which was choosen as the exhibition catalogue main cover illustration.) 

 

Pierre & Gilles website with their work, exhibitions etc. can be seen here.

 

 

In the USA, Philip Gladstone, illustrator and sculptor from Philadelphia, created the below 'rapt from Ganymede' in 2006. His website is here.