Homosexuality in Art / James Smalls

Introduction; Homosexuality in Western Antiquity; Comrades in Arms and the Body Beautiful; The Hellenistic Period: The Age of Dionysos; Greek Influence Abroad; The Disenchantments of Sappho; Rome from Republic to Empire; Pompeii; Homosexuality in the Middle Ages; The Unspeakable Vice; Fire and Brimstone; Sacred Pairings in the Byzantine World; The Romanesque Period (1000-1200); Intolerance and Repression (1200-1400); David and Jonathan; Moralizing Manuscripts; Descent into the Inferno; The Late Middle Ages; Female Homosexuality in the Middle Ages. Homosexuality in the Italian RenaissanceRenaissance Neoplatonism; Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519); Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564); Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571); The Northern Renaissance; The Later Italian Renaissance; The Baroque Period; Female Homosexuality in the Renaissance; Homosexuality in the Art of The Non-Western World; India; China; Japan; Islam; 1700-1900: Towards A Homosexual Identity; Libertines and libertinism; Neoclassicism and Romanticism; Realism; Symbolism and the Leap of Imagination; From Aestheticism to Sexology; Homosexuality in the Art of Modernism and Postmodernism. I. From Modernism to Stonewall (1900-1969)Sappho on the Left Bank; II. From Stonewall to Postmodernism (post-1969); Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

This book is not a panegyric of homosexuality. It is a scientific study led by Professor James Smalls who teaches art history in the prestigious University of Maryland, Baltimore. Abandoning all classical clichés and sociological approaches, the author highlights the sensibility particular to homosexuals. This book examines the process of creation and allows one to comprehend the contribution of homosexuality to the evolution of emotional perception. In a time when all barriers have been overcome, this analysis offers a new understanding of our civilisation's masterpieces.

English