Sleepy

We start the Henri Rupp series with a model who looks sleepy.

 

Hesiod and the Muse

The photo quality leaves a lot to be desired in this Rupp study for Hesiod and the Muse.

 

Argonauts I

This is the first of two photographic studies Henri Rupp did for Gustave Moreau's The Argonauts.

 

Languid Classic

The pose here is both languid and classic.

 

Damaged, but nice

This is the second of two photos in my Henri Rupp collection that appear to have either

 been damaged or poorly developed.  I think it's actually good anyway.

 

Argonauts II

This Henri Rupp photo was another used for Moreau's painting The Argonauts.

 

Casual

There's a casual feel to this Rupp photo.

 

Dreamy

Despite the slightly awkward pose, there's a dreamy quality to our final Henri Rupp photo.

 

And the winner is . . .

This is my current all-time favorite photo, an 1876 image by Gaudenzio Marconi that literally shows it's intended use by an artist.  Those grid lines are a device used to insure consistent sizing when an artist creates a larger image from a photo.  The model is nothing less than beautiful, and the pose is utterly sublime.  Marconi died at age 44.  What a loss!

 

Early 20th Century

Our theme today is early 20th Century men, and up first is a photo described by my source 

as an artist's study.  I'm sure a lot of guys wanted to study the model.

 

Study II

Here we have the second photo in the set that was used as an artistist's study.

Gotta figure it had to be for a crucifixion motif.

 

Igout Page

Over the years I've published dozens of photos attributed to Louis Igout, an 1880s photographer who made nude photos for artists too poor to hire paid models.  In a further effort to keep costs down, it seems that most of these were published as panels of multiple photos per page.  When trolling for them on the internet, I have to do repeated searches to find scans of sufficient resolution to crop out individual shots.  The above is toward the better end of the continuum, but I have resorted to lower quality scans when I found a low resolution picture I just had to have.

 

Mel Fellini

This is a study for a painting called The Sea.  The model is Mel Fellini, 

and I'm still trying to figure out how this pose might relate to the sea.

 

19th Century Artists' Studies

As a prelude for our Friday art series, I'm posting some more photos from my collection of what are believed to be 19th photo studies for artists.  I like the way this model looks straight at us.

 

Creation

This looks like a creation scene stolen from the Sistine Chapel or some such.

 

Graceful

This graceful pose may have served some artist(s) well.

 

Achilles

I think this is a version of the Achilles legend.

 

Lalaing Studies

I was trying to put together a double feature for tomorrow's Friday art series centered on the work of Anglo-Belgian sculptor Jacques Lalaing.  I discovered, however, that while he used dozens of nude studies of male models in his work, he only made one or two sculptures of such . . . and they aren't that exciting from the perspective of my viewers.  So, I'll just post some of the photos and find something else for the art series.  We start with an awkward pose that accentuates a key element.

 

Different type

While the model who appears in the great majority of the Lalaing studies is amazing,

I find this model of a different type and style to be enjoyable, too.

 

Scaling grid

A helpful viewer let me know a couple of years ago that the grid lines used on this photo were for the purpose of increasing the scale of the subject for oversized projects.  I'm enjoying the comparative clarity of this photo as opposed to most of what we have from Lalaing's studies.