Curiously for a term with sex in the middle of the word, our consideration of homosexuality up until now has not included any discussion of sexuality. In this section, you will notice significant distinctions between Western and Eastern imagery in relation to desire. While Western art sought to seduce its viewers fantasies with highly suggestive imagery, only rarely was sexual penetration depicted, and never in a fine art context. This gulf between art and pornography in the West, this cordoning off of sex as illicit and unworthy of respect, makes little sense in an Asian context where sex is understood as a part of life. It was only after Japan opened to the West in 1869 that it began to police homosexual representation—not because the Japanese objected to it, but because they feared the West would find it distasteful, potentially damaging Japan’s overtures to Europe and the Americas.

     Extended Labels

Unknown
China
The King Favors his Marshall
c. 1900
Exhibition print
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
LN200.155

Classical Chinese writing depicted the male same-sex relation as a hierarchical relationship between a ruler and his favorite. For a man,  male sexual beauty was as attractive as female beauty. A common Chinese expression for early male same-sex relations translates as “cut  sleeves,” from the story of Han Dynasty Emperor Ai Di and his favorite, Dong Xian. Napping with Dong, the emperor was called upon for  duty. With Dong sleeping over his sleeve, he cut it rather than wake him. Thus, the expression “obsession with cut sleeves” was used for  men later called “homosexual.” This undated work likely represents actors in a scene.

Unknown
China
Untitled
c. 1890
Painting
Private Collection of Brian P. Coppola
LN200.133

Erotic paintings were the privileged province of the Chinese cultural elite in the Imperial period (before 1911). During the Republican  period immediately thereafter, erotic paintings were seen as a sign of cultural corruption and deemed mere pornography. After the  communists took power in 1949, this association with cultural elites and pornography made erotic imagery doubly sanctioned.

Unknown
China
Untitled
c. 1880-90
Painting
Private Collection of Brian P. Coppola
LN200.131

In this scene, a male teacher erotically teases one of his male students with the handle of a fan while another student spies the scene from  outside the window.

Konstantin Somov
Russia, lived and worked in France, 1869-1939
Standing Male Model from Back
1896
Crayons and sauce-crayon on paper
Odesa Fine Arts Museum, Ukraine
LN200.113

Somov created this drawing in 1896 during his last full year of study at the Academy of Fine Arts, just before leaving St. Petersburg for  Paris. He later recalled that the years of training in St. Petersburg had taught him little, but his classmates and teachers thought his work,  even mundane class exercises, invariably stunning. This drawing is one of these class exercises. Energetic blue strokes generate an almost  electric tension, while the model’s precisely detailed back, with its developed musculature and rounded buttocks, clearly hint at the sexual  predilection of the artist, who became aware of his homosexuality early.

Konstantin Somov
Russia, lived and worked in France, 1869-1939
Les Tribades illustration for Le Livre de la Marquise
1917
Watercolors and zincography on paper
Odesa Fine Arts Museum, Ukraine
LN200.114

The French word tribade, or lesbian, originated from a Greek verb that means to rub. Somov created this drawing for his Le Livre de la  Marquise, a collection of erotic anecdotes, verses, and funny stories he gleaned from old European literature. This edition, adopting the  style of 18th-century boudoir books, was published in Petrograd (modern day St. Petersburg) in 1918, when the Bolsheviks decriminalized  homosexuality. This illustration accompanies an excerpt from a French text entitled Paris at the time of Louis XV: Reports of the Police Inspectors to the King (Paris, 1908).

Owe Zerge
Sweden, 1894-1983
Model Act
1919
Oil on canvas
Private Collection
LN200.11

Zerge’s paintings of eroticized young men have gained attention in the last few decades. Inspired by Renaissance painting, he painted  portraits and still lifes in a Neo-realist style. Here, Zerge displays particular prowess in the sheer rendering of the model’s drape that barely  conceals his genitals. Educated at the Royal Art Academy in Stockholm, Zerge had his debut at the 1921 Paris Salon. His themes include  everyday scenes of workers, farmers and seamen, Swedish folk tales, and religious and mythological motifs, such as the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. They project a strong sense of the artist’s erotic feelings for his subjects.

Unknown
Iran
Untitled
[An indoor homosexual encounter]
c. 1880-1926
Watercolor on paper
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
LN200.99

Garden parties and picnic scenes were common settings for the depiction of homosexual sex in early modern Islamic art. These erotic  paintings (most likely from Iran) show men engaging in anal sex. One couple appears in a lush garden with ferns and flowers. The other  kneels over a carpet and pillow, surrounded by a book of poetry, a bottle of wine, and a water pipe. In both paintings, the active partner is  more elaborately dressed, the turban denoting superior social status. Homoerotic desire for younger men was considered legitimate in  Muslim learned circles, especially among men in empowered social positions.

Unknown
Iran
Untitled
[An outdoor homosexual encounter]
c. 1880-1926
Watercolor on paper
The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
LN200.100

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, male Muslim writers frequently debated the merits of sex with women and young men. Entire genres of  poetry celebrated men’s beauty in Cairo, Istanbul, and Isfahan. The sensory pleasures of gardens and wine are prominent tropes. Young  men were praised for their “hyacinth” curls and bodies that “sway like cypresses;” a lovesick man was “drunk from the cup of his love’s  wine.” Islamic artists translated these metaphors into paintings of idyllic settings with food, wine, and music. Yet the love of younger men could distract from more noble pursuits. Thus, the paintings are at once erotic and moralistic, enticing viewers, while also communicating a  higher ideal.

Gerda Wegener
Denmark, lived and worked in Denmark and France, 1885-1940
Erotic Scene
Ink and watercolor on paper
The Shin Collection, New York
LN200.142

Gerda Wegener was a famous illustrator, one of the most popular in France before and during WWI. She produced a significant amount of  pornographic material as illustrations, mostly of lesbian scenes. Watercolors like this one, where a female musician receives cunnilingus  from an actress or ballerina, were designed to accompany erotic literature.

Jane Poupelet
France, 1874-1932
Nu de dos à califourchon sur une chaise
1906
Sepia
Gift of the artist’s family in 1934, Centre Pompidou – Musée National d’Art Moderne/ Center for Industrial Design
LN200.73

Poupelet was primarily known for her sculpture -she worked in Rodin’s studio from 1900 to 1904 when it was arguably the most famous sculptural studio in the world. She was talented at drawing. An active participant in early feminist organizations, she also formed a close  relationship with the American sculptor Janet Scudder, beginning in 1912, when Poupelet was in her late 20s. These two drawings  underscore Poupelet’s intention to resist the depiction of the female nude for the delectation of the presumptively heterosexual male  viewer. As back views, Poupelet’s drawings minimize secondary sexual characteristics in favor another, more holistic, eroticism.