France Day, Part 2 - Courtois of Courtois and Bouveret

Gustave Courtois (left) and Pascal Dagnan Bouveret met in a Paris art academy and became successful artists of the Academic style.  They also maintained a studio together for many 

years and were widely assumed by the sophisticated Parisians to have been lovers.  In the last 

months of my old tumblr blog, I featured a series of nudes by Bouveret.  Now it is Courtois' turn, 

but unfortunately he only did seminude paintings of men.  They are still worth a look.

(For those of you who missed the Bouveret nudes, I will rerun them fairly soon.)

As you will see in the following posts of this series, Courtois was not known for doing full nudes.  He did, however, produce a number of works that can only be described as homoerotic.  This one is a study of a middle aged man that somehow manages to get into that latter category in my opinion.

Courtois' work frequently featured Christian saints or figures from Classical mythology.  This is a study for a work the completed version of which I could not find despite several searches.

Courtois and Bouveret's friend and fellow artist Karl Ernst von Stetten may have been the model 

for Oedipus Killing His Father.  Stetten posed for Courtois on several occasions.

Several observers believe that the beefy model for Courtois' Paradise Lost was 1900's era strong 

man Maurice Deriaz, who has been featured here on the blog.  Deriaz is documented to have posed for several Courtois paintings, but this one is not officially ascribed to his modeling.

The Corn Sorter is by far the least erotic of today's Courtois paintings,]

but it shows an easy familiarity with a handsome male body.

France Day, Part 1 - Five Photographers

Both of Friday's series will feature works from France, one of my favorite countries.  

We start with five male nude photos by five photographers.  Our first one is by Louis Igout,

 a photographer known for his excellent albums of studies for artists.  I  generally don't 

like to post photos with watermarks,but this one was just too good to pass up.

Paul Richer was a French photographer known 

for his anatomical studies as shown in this 1905 photo.

Jean Louis Durieu produced this photograph as part

of an 1850's series of studies for the French painter Delacroix.  

This 1856 photograph is from the Metropolitan Museum's collection

and is listed as French done by an unknown photographer.

France was a cutting edge environment for scientific progress in the 19th Century, 

and Albert Londe did some pioneering studies of musculature in motion, as in this photograph.

Army Men out for a Swim

Thursday's theme is army men enjoying a swim.  I've always liked this photo of 

World War I era soldiers, but I've never been quite sure of their nationality.

Our bum brigade special shows some men toweling off after a swim.

This is the best of a set of photos showing some World War II 

era soldiers emerging from a swim in a river.

This friendly group features some middle aged members of the Wehrmacht.

This guy seems to be getting ready to go for a swim,

much to the amusement of the other soldiers.

John Manning Day, Part 2 - Non-nudes

Part 2 of John Manning day features him in a variety of non-nude photos.

Somehow I missed this AMG photo when I recently did a lumberjack themed series.

Then again, the palm tree doesn't exactly fit, does it?

John Manning posed for Bruce of LA in a ranch setting for this photo.

Bruce was said to have had a small property outside LA, and this might be it.

I have quite a few photos from this AMG session featuring John Manning and two attactive co-stars.  Notice how the models are each pointing at their names.  Nice touch.
Edited to add:  See James IV's comment for some interesting information about this picture.

I should be embarrassed to include this Bruce of LA photo of John Manning with some really tacky props which exploit his Native American heritage, but I think its inclusion is historically instructive.  Even a photographic artist like Bruce, who it should be clearly noted was subject to discrimination and legal persecution for both his sexuality and work, found it expedient to exploit John's ethnicity.  It should also be noted that other photographers of that era did this, albeit with better quality props.