Showcasing vintage male photography, mostly nude. You must be 18 years of age or older to visit this blog! If you hold a copyright on any material shown on this blog, notify me, and it will be removed immediately.
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Sunday, September 25, 2022
Fig Leaf Popup
Today I'm doing a quick popup series on muscular early 20th C. men in fig leaves.
We start with F.W. Guerin who was a student of Prof. B.A ;McFadden.
The card might be labelled "Classical Poses" - and Mr Guerin's pose most certainly is - but not with a moustache! Moustaches were for Barbarians, not Romans. The Celts and the Germanic tribes wore them. The beard made a come back with the Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117 to 138) with the Hellenist Revival and perpetuated under Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (reigned 161 to 180), the last emperor of the Pax Romana. The Hellenistic Revival was in part a reaction to Christianity. A further short-lived wave came at the instigation of the Emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus), called the Apostate, son of Constantine 1 who reigned from 361 to 363 and was the last Pagan emperor, rejecting Arian Christianity in favour of Neoplatonism. Images of all three have come down to us with full beards.
Very much a man of his time. Gorgeous physique and tache. I bet he arrived at the studio wearing a boater. As ever, we wonder about the method of fixing. As it is so neat and curved, I'm going with a tied bag around his bits, with the leaf stitched onto the bag?
Those abs...nice lighting, good pose. Too bad it's not a full frontal.
ReplyDeleteThe card might be labelled "Classical Poses" - and Mr Guerin's pose most certainly is - but not with a moustache! Moustaches were for Barbarians, not Romans. The Celts and the Germanic tribes wore them. The beard made a come back with the Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117 to 138) with the Hellenist Revival and perpetuated under Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (reigned 161 to 180), the last emperor of the Pax Romana. The Hellenistic Revival was in part a reaction to Christianity. A further short-lived wave came at the instigation of the Emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus), called the Apostate, son of Constantine 1 who reigned from 361 to 363 and was the last Pagan emperor, rejecting Arian Christianity in favour of Neoplatonism. Images of all three have come down to us with full beards.
ReplyDeleteAs a young man, I saw a bust of Hadrian in the British Museum and left with a crush on him.
DeleteHa. I know the one you mean. Not surprised.
DeleteVery much a man of his time. Gorgeous physique and tache. I bet he arrived at the studio wearing a boater. As ever, we wonder about the method of fixing. As it is so neat and curved, I'm going with a tied bag around his bits, with the leaf stitched onto the bag?
ReplyDeleteSomeone should do a doctoral dissertation on fig leaf technology. Those works only very rarely sell commercially, but that one might.
DeleteThere is clearly a need for such a work.
ReplyDelete