Gay secrets of the MET Museum - New York

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.

Professor Andrew Lear (Oscar Wilde Tours)

Some bio extracts:

Professor Andrew Lear combines a love of travel with a passion for gay history, and he brings both of those attributes to Oscar Wilde Tours.
Professor Lear holds a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from UCLA. He has published a widely praised book on male-male love in ancient Greek art, as well as a number of important scholarly articles in this area. Indeed he is generally considered one of the foremost experts on same-sex love in the ancient world, but his interest in gay history extends to other key periods, such as fin-de-siècle England, Renaissance Italy, and medieval Japan...
A beloved teacher at Harvard, Columbia and NYU, Professor Lear won the Harvard Certificate for Excellence in Teaching four times. He has taught a wide variety of courses in Classics, history, art history, and gender studies—as well as Italian and French language classes.

His courses on sexuality in the ancient world have been particularly popular.
Professor Lear brings all those qualities to Oscar Wilde Tours, along with twenty years of experience organizing and leading group tours. With his vast cultural background, his detailed knowledge of gay history and his long experience of travel, Professor Lear strives to provide our guests with a vacation that is intellectually stimulating, culturally rewarding and, above all, fun!

Sources:
Eventbrite
Oscar Wilde Tours

Antinous & Hadrien's love (1)

Currently working on another male couple sculpture, I will not post pictures of a new personal work before some time. So, lets discover other ones!

A tout seigneur tout honneur ! We will start with Antinoüs, probably the most sculpted young man ever, despite the fact he was neither a Statesman nor a philosopher, but simply who was loved.
(Marguerite Yourcenar, in Mémoires d'Hadrien : "alors que son visage, ne fut ni celui d'un homme d'Etat ni celui d'un philosophe, mais simplement qui fut aimé'''.

Everything is said. Antinoüs became in spite of himself a gay icon.

To make a short story : the Roman Emperor Hadrian fell in love with Antinous, who joined him on many trips (Italy, Greece, Egypt). Antinous drowned in the Nile at 20. Mad with grief , Hadrian founded Antinoopolis. And through the Roman Empire, many cities erected statues in honor of Antinous and a cult developed in favor of the 'god' Antinous, as well as the construction of temples in his honor. This cult was extremely developed, and the last one before Christianity.
From the hundreds of interpretations in stone, besides painting or drawings, we will only retain those that move us the most. And also those who are perhaps less known but important.

The one below is from the Vatican museum - The sculpture was reportedly found in Palestrina. White marble. First 3 photos by S. Sosnowskiy.

                                             

 

Marguerite Yourcenar's Mémoires d'Hadrien was very present in my mind while preparing this Antinoüs series, together with other sources that will be summarized at the end.

So I will dare to share a little family souvenir: surprisingly both my grandfathers have maintained a small correspondence with Marguerite Yourcenar (without colluding one suspects). One of them even had the privilege (?) of helping her to 'strip' at his home (and it took some time given the amount of buttons!) before she put on her official coat for her entrance at the 'Academie Française'. She was the first female member to be elected at the French Academy.

Next month we celebrate the 25th anniversary of her death, December 17, 1987.

Antinoüs B&W photo below from Animula Vagula Blandula blog.

                                                               Marguerite Yourcenar
                                 (Brussels Belgium June 8, 1903 - Maine USA, Dec 17, 1987)