With lavish illustrations and an incisive, witty text, Adam reveals a history of the male in art of every medium. This book shows how the heroic nude traversed the centuries from ancient Rome to the "peplum" movies of the 1950's; how a tamer, feminized male made his appearance in flirtatious paintings of the French rococo; how the Christian shame of nudity was solved in representations of the crucifixion or images of martyrdom; and how baroque artists exaggerated male characteristics to create supermales. Work of artists as diverse as Leonardo, Fragonard, Beardsley, Nadar, and Weber- and the historic contributions of men from David Bowie to Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Nuba warrior-combine to make Adam a fascinating and entertaining romp through the history of art and sexuality.
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Book Description
No image in our culture invokes a more powerful taboo than the male nude. Yet this subject matter has held a central position in Western culture-from the idealized beauty of ancient Greek and Roman statues to the photography an pop media of today.
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About the Author
EDWARD LUCIE-SMITH is an internationally renowned art historian, lecturer, broadcaster, and writer whose books include Ars Erotica (Rizzoli, 1997)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thoroughly refreshing entry into art history,
By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
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This review is from: Adam: The Male Figure in Art (Paperback)
Adam; The Male Figure in Art by Edward Lucie-Smith sets out to explore how artists have perceived and represented man as a subject in every form of the arts. With his characteristic enthusiasm and wit Lucie-Smith offers enough treasures of painting, sculpture, photography, murals from Egypt and Rome and Greece to satisfy even the most avid art historian. It is a pleasure to discover young contemporary artists along side the ancients and the grand masters. This is a potpouri, a delectable, energetic voyage that begs frequent return visits. A must from the current coffee table art book selection for the holidays!
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
great resource for art historians interested in masculinity,
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This review is from: Adam: The Male Figure in Art (Paperback)
this book seeks to briefly encapsulate the history of the male figure in (western) art. it does a good job of providing a variety of styles and media, and the images are always very interesting. also, as a dancer, it is fascinating to note how the body becomes more and more realistic as anatomy is more fully studied and understood. it is a great resource for those interested in this branch of art history, as well as those who are interested in the way culture has looked at the male body.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lavishly illustrated,
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This review is from: Adam: The Male Figure in Art (Hardcover)
As the introduction explains: "the purpose of this book is to discuss the paradoxes inherent in Western attitudes to the image of the nude or naked male" although Lucie-Smith goes on to say that he will be taking a look at the attitudes of other cultures to the male nude. The author then expounds his thoughts through the subsequent nine chapters looking at the male nude from early times to the present day. The writing is intelligent and informative as one would expect from such an authority as Edward Lucie-Smith.
The book is lavishly illustrates throughout with around 100 full-colour and well over 60 mono or duo-tones. Many of the pictures are full-page and some double-page. They include painting, drawing, sculpture and pottery, and photography, some subtle others blatantly provocative. However while the illustrations are well captioned and usually accompanied by a brief comment, their seems to be little direct relationship between them and the text, many artists mentioned in the text are not illustrated, and many illustrated are not mentioned in the text; it as if there are two separate books here. The artists illustrated include David Hockney, Michael Leonard, Andy Warhol, Gilbert and George, Lucien Freud, De Chirico, Picasso, Delmas Howe, Tom of Finland, Tom Binachi, Roberto Rincon, Tony Butcher and many more - but for example no Robert Mapplethorpe who is mention in the text. Adam, the Male Figure in Art make an interesting read, and an equally interesting visual experience, it is unfortunate that there is little relationship between the two other than the subject matter.
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