If you are in New York next November 4, 2016 you may want to explore some less-known aspects of the Metropolitan Museum treasures, during a tour called 'Gay Secrets of the Met'.
This artistic & fun & knowledge-sharing promenade is organized by Oscar Wilde Tours and is led by the famous professor, Andrew Lear (see some bio extracts at the end of the post).
Of course, you will see Greek and Roman ancient nude statues, like Hadrian (the first out gay leader as Lear says) and Antinous (well mentioned
in this blog here), but also homoerotic art pieces from other periods, Renaissance, phallic totems of Oceania, beautiful Italian paintings, curious erotic vases, sculptures, etc. all depicting, visibly of more hidden at times, gay characters, male love, seducing scenes, etc.
Some artists can be well known at times, like Caravaggio or Rodin, but you will discover others too. They all depict the appreciation for the male love. Professor Lear did some research on one interesting painting by Andrea Sacchi for example, ''depicting a nude Apollo crowning the soprano singer Pasqualini. With a bit of
digging, Lear concluded the painting was secretly an homage to the
intimate relationship between the singer and a well-known cardinal of
the time, a nephew of Pope Urban VIII. ''.
As Eventbrite quotes : ''The
Met doesn’t have as many male nudes as other major museums because
there was little trustee backing for the curators to acquire risqué
pieces in its early days. The Met’s funders, more so than other museums,
Lear claims, were a dominating and “very prudish” group. As visible by
today’s exhibits, that didn’t last. “There’s so much homo-eroticism in
the history of art that you can’t keep it out that easily,” Lear says.
“Even if you try, it’s going to pop back up.” “In the Renaissance, anytime there
was an excuse for making something homoerotic, they do,” Lear says.
At the end of tour, Professor Lear shows a trio of portraits done by gay New Yorkers in the 1940s art scene.
Sources:
Eventbrite
Oscar Wilde Tours
