A Hidden Love: Art and Homosexuality (Art & Design S.) [Hardcover]

Dominique Fernandez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2002 | Series: Art & Design S.

This volume examines artistic works from the past to show how the most powerful representations of homosexuality have emerged from conditions of secrecy and even repression. The book is illustrated with works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Canova, Lucien Freud, Robert Mapplethorpe and others. Fernandez considers the many styles and strategies by which artists, sculptors and photographers have elaborated on the essence of homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome, the Renaissance and Baroque movements, Chinese and Japanese erotica, the 19th century, the official art of fascism and, finally, the modern and contemporary eras. Throughout, Fernandez considers the morality of each society, comparing artistic success and acceptance across the centuries. He arrives at conclusions which demand a fundamental reassessment of art history and the creative process, and which can be extended far beyond the realm of homosexuality in art.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With 350 color illustrations and elegant and eminently readable prose, prize-winning French writer Fernandez describes the sometimes explicit and more often implicit presence of homosexuality in art. From Classical Greece and Rome, through Renaissance Europe and the Far East, to contemporary Western culture, homosexual artists have created erotically charged works that sneaked their way into religious settings, public displays, and private collections, with their intent often hidden beneath a mantle of religious iconography or political chauvinism. The artists examined include Michelangelo, Ingres, Eakins, and Warhol, among many others, all of whose works are placed in the context of their times and the prevailing sensibilities. Though not a comprehensive study on the topic (the modern period especially seems a little thin-where are Paul Cadmus, George Tooker, Keith Haring, and Duane Michaels, to name just four?), this title is an impressive attempt. A worthwhile purchase for gay studies and larger collections with developed fine arts collections. [Libraries should be aware that, because of the focus on the erotic, there is some sexual content in this book.-Ed.]-Jeff Ingram, Newport P.L., O.
--Jeff Ingram, Newport P.L., OR
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Prestel Publishing; 1 edition (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3791327046
• ISBN-13: 978-3791327044
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 10.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,109,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a jaded and superficial presentation of important ideas, July 26, 2007

By 

Mark (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Hidden Love: Art and Homosexuality (Art & Design S.) (Hardcover)

I was incredibly excited when I saw this book at a bookstore, so much so that I paged through it, saw some of the wonderful images inside and put it on my Amazon wish list without thinking further. Now that I have the book, I'm going to tear out those beautiful images and put the writing in the trash where it belongs.

On the positive side, Fernandez has done a lot of research and touches on a lot of important points. But there are many negatives:
1. The most important negative is a prevailing air of self-hatred which comes out on almost every page. His language treads the tired ground that homosexuality and serious pursuits like religion or statesmanship must by necessity be at odds with each other because homosexuality must always devolve into "the remorseless hunger, monotony, and cruelty of phallic obsession". He begins the book by stating that homosexuality has existed in every culture and time, but then falls all over himself to emphasize what a minority it has probably always been, and to paint the relations as coerced and decadent in most instances. It's a valid viewpoint but one that I've heard enough in traditional history books- I'm hungry for something new that better fits the truth of my life and the truth that I see in many other homosexual lives, both present and past.
2. Fernandez often works against his own main thesis in the book. He says that artworks from periods of repression are better than works produced by "permissive society". And yet he includes perfectly happy and well-adjusted Greek men in what he apparently agrees to be great works of art, then lambasts illustrations for a de Sade book which are "unartistic" specifically because laws against them force them into a heated overindulgence.
2. Fernandez puts a great deal more emphasis on boys and very young men than is necessary. It's true that man-boy sexuality has been preferred in many societies, but there are pictures of naked boys included in the book for which Fernandez offers no support as to their being homosexual, homophilic, or even homosocial. Fernandez seems to feel that any portrayal of a naked adolescent male is inherently "homo", which smacks of personal desire more than professional thought. Also, he insists on the same apparent fiction as many writers on the subject that fully grown, heavily muscled young men must be read as "boys" simply because they are involved in a homosexual relationship with an older man of exactly the same body type but sporting a beard. No doubt, the canonical view was that the depiction was a man-boy relationship, but the visual evidence (backed up by more literary evidence than he's willing to admit) points to more egalitarian relationships than the canonical standard alludes.
3. The author bites off more than he can chew in many instances. I had assumed from the images that this was primarily a book on the visual arts, but long passages are devoted to poetry, theatre, film, literature, and legal and social history. With a more skillful writer, these might have helped illustrate the visual images, but here they're more often distracting.
4. Arguments for some of the more controversial inclusions are awkward. David decapitating Goliath, Hercules wrestling with Achelous, and Apollo flaying Marsyas can conceivably be read as erotic, but the author whisks through his argument for including them in a few sentences, leaving them open to suspicion. Would he argue that images of Judith killing Holofernes should be read as erotic as well? Why or why not? Interesting ideas, but discussed superficially. And he'd have to work a lot harder to convince me that Gericault's Raft of the Medusa can be read as erotic of any kind.
5. Some inclusions, such as Saint Sebastian, which are easy to justify, are given pages and pages of text and images which almost seem like overkill. And contrary to what another reviewer wrote, I often found myself flipping back and forth to try to match images to text. In a couple cases, I couldn't find any text at all for included images and was left feeling like they were included just because the author liked them.
6. For all the emphasis on same-gender sex, the book talks very little about the overarching notions of gender which must frame the subject. For instance, he includes a half-paragraph on lesbian scenes from 18th-century grand manner paintings without specifically pointing out at all that they were painted by men, and then doesn't mention the equally but differently homoerotic paintings by a promiment woman of the time, Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun.
7. The writing could have used an editor in many instances. For instance, Fernandez begins his section on Neoclassicism by saying that he'll be discussing two major events. He doesn't even tell us what the second event is until 11 pages later, by which time the reader has forgotten the original setup. Similarly, the last sentence of his chapter on east Asia is an aside that Japanese artists depicted group sex, just sort of tacked onto the end as if he hadn't found a good place to mention it anywhere else but wanted to get it in.
8. The author includes lots of frank pornography by big-name intellectuals like Cocteau and Eisenstein, but then proceeds to decry pornography by people who aren't famous as worthless. Combined with his apparent interest in age-defined homosexuality and his preference for aristocratic hypocrisy over modern "permissiveness", the overall effect gets pretty snobby.

I give the book two stars only because of its breadth and lavish images. It is a great introduction to the subject if the reader is able to edit out the bitter queen mentality that effuses most of it. Get it from a library to look at the pictures and skim the text, then purchase the magnificent Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton to read.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Most Luxuriously Illustrated Art Books with a Message, August 29, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Hidden Love: Art and Homosexuality (Art & Design S.) (Hardcover)

The topic of inferred or occult homosexual meanings of masterpieces from Greco-Roman times to the present has needed a spokesman for a long time, someone who is willing to take on the arguments pro and con of artists' intentions and messages, reflective or declamatory, and form an argument to fill the nebulous void of written information.

Dominique Fernandez writes with an easy, conversational style that makes his commentary and précis accessible as it is spread throughout this large volume. In contrast to less successful art history books, the designers of this volume have keyed the illustrations to the exact page on which the commentary is placed: no looking through indices here, and no struggling through disrupting the thought by attempting to locate the example.

Fernandez follows a chronological timeline in presenting his thoughts. One effective motif is selecting various myths and historical/biblical stories to play over the entire book of changing times, styles, social mores, and attitudes as they have (+/-!) progressed from the Greeks to the 20th Century. Examples: Achilles and Patroclus, Jupiter and Ganymede, Castor and Pollux, Narcissus, Apollo and Hyacinthus, Orpheus post Eurydice, Plato's infamous school, Cain and Abel, St. Sebastian, David and Goliath, St. John and Baptist, Hercules and Antaeus, St Francis' ecstasy, and others. Fernandez illustrates how these myths and tales have been acceptable ways for artists to discuss same-sex love or even confessional metaphors. While the orientation of such masters as Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Cellini, and Canova is well known, the works of other artists through time leave suggestive calling cards in their approach to the male figures and story content of the sculptures, paintings, and drawings.

The book is divided into sections: A Language of Symbols, Greek Antiquity, Ancient Rome, Modern Uses for Greek Myths, The World of the Bible, Christianity, The Renaissance in Florence and Rome, Baroque Europe, The Far East, Neoclassical Europe, Nineteenth-Century Reactions, A Free World, Dictatorships, The Permissive Society, and a concluding section called Art, Lost and Found. The reproductions are exquisite, with particular emphasis on the splendid visualization of the many sculptures displayed - each freestanding without the fuss of setting that can be so distracting.

If there are negative aspects of this fine volume, they would be the lack of detail in contemporary art: The Permissive Society section is severely pared down to exclude more than it includes. If some of Fernandez' writing comes across as opinion rather than fact, then credit the man with at least having the courage to make a significant argument for his stance. For those who appreciate fine art books with the additional pleasure of opinion, this is a book that deserves attention. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, August 05

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice pictures, November 5, 2002

By 

a reader (Kansas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Hidden Love: Art and Homosexuality (Art & Design S.) (Hardcover)

This is a large and impressive coffee-table book. The artwork is reproduced in fine images, many in full page size. Unfortunately, the text is no where near as good. The author's opinions are neither well-researched nor documented. There is an abundance of proclaimations that have no basis. If you are looking for an intelligent and scholarly work on the representation of homosexuality in the history of art, then you should skip this book. Buy it for the pictures, not for the text.