Full Description
Male bonds were omnipresent in nineteenth-century European artistic scenes, impacting the creation, presentation, and reception of art in decisive ways. Men's lives and careers bore the marks of their relations with other men. Yet, such male bonds are seldom acknowledged for what they are: gendered and historically determined social constructs. This volume shines a critical light on male homosociality in the arts of the long nineteenth century by combining art history with the insights of gender and queer history. From this interdisciplinary perspective, the case studies presented in this volume examine men's relationships in a variety of contexts, which range from the Hungarian Reform Age to the Belgian fin de siecle. As a whole, the book offers a historicizing survey of the male bonds that underpinned nineteenth-century art and a thought-provoking reflection on its theoretical and methodological implications.
Contributing authors: Eva Bicskei (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Brigid Boyle (Rutgers University), Anthea Callen (University of Nottingham and Australian National University), Thijs Dekeukeleire (independent scholar), Henk de Smaele (University of Antwerp), Sean Kramer (University of Michigan), Crawford Alexander Mann III (Smithsonian American Art Museum), Mary Manning (independent scholar), Thomas Moser (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), Rachel Sloan (Courtauld Gallery), Patrik Steorn (Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm), Marjan Sterckx (Ghent University), Tom Verschaffel (KU Leuven)
Contents
Introduction
Thijs Dekeukeleire, Marjan Sterckx, Henk de Smaele
Bonds, bounds, and beyond Dalou's monument to fraternity, and homosociality in nineteenth-century art Thijs Dekeukeleire, Henk de Smaele
Part I: Familial bonds: Mediating masculine intimacy
"Les Stevens!" Masculine bonds in a nineteenth-century artistic family
Tom Verschaffel
Brothers-in-law of the brush The domestic dramas of Edouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel
Rachel Sloan
The prodigal son revisited Male bodies and bonds in two fin de siecle sculptures by Constantin Meunier and George Minne Marjan Sterckx
Part II: Coercive bonds: Disciplining the male body
Alliances of virtue Hungarian (self-)Reformers and their (self-)representation at the Diet in Pressburg (1825-1827) Eva Bicskei
Bazille, painter-Zouave Friendship and duty at the dawn of the Franco-Prussian War
Mary Manning
Undressing the army Hygiene and hierarchies in Eugene Chaperon's The Shower in the Regiment (1887)
Sean Kramer
Part III: Covert bonds: Queering the nineteenth-century man
Raphael, Jonah, and Antinoüs Problems of male beauty and sexuality on the grand tour
Crawford Alexander Mann III
Mystical manhood Whirling dervishes in the Orientalist imaginary
Brigid M. Boyle
Men and models of the city Eugene Jansson's nudes
Patrik Steorn
Part IV: Forged bonds: Competing for each other's attention
Dressing the part Male bonding "on the motif " in nineteenth-century France
Anthea Callen
Everybody's darling Loie Fuller in service of male homosocial avant-garde identity
Thomas Moser
The struggle is real The wrestling groups of the antagonist sculptors Lambeaux and Van der Stappen
Thijs Dekeukeleire
