For black and queer boys, the policing of masculinity is ever-present. It comes in short fits of outrage: Take it like a man! Don't act like a faggot! Don't act like no punk ass bitch!
Looking for design inspiration? Browse our curated collections! Recently Commented On. Recently Featured in Groups. Panoramic Horizontal. Panoramic Vertical. Leonardo Da Vinci.
The nude figure is a tradition in Western art , and has been used to express ideals of male and female beauty and other human qualities. It was a central preoccupation of Ancient Greek art , and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position in Western art with the Renaissance. Athletes, dancers, and warriors are depicted to express human energy and life, and nudes in various poses may express basic or complex emotions such as pathos. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting , including allegorical and religious art , portraiture , or the decorative arts. Nude female figures called Venus figurines are found in the art of the Upper Palaeolithic , and in historical times, similar images represent fertility deities.
Some see him as famous, some as notorious because of what can be perceived as obscene imagery, but the truth is, Mapplethrope was the conceiver of unique poetics, making the hidden and the tabooed accessible to the masses. At the peak of his career, he was beaten by AIDS, while his life evolution can be tracked through subtle hints of his self portrait photography. The one above was made in If you are interested in Robert Mapplethorpe books just click here. Featured is one of his black male nude torsos, done six years prior to his exhibition Black Males and the subsequent edition called The Black Book.