John Singer Sargent – 1856 – 1925
Sargent is not remembered for being a prominent gay artist, manly because many art scholars and followers of Sargent have dismissed all evidence and signs supporting such. Aside from being close to Oscar Wilde, Robert de Montesquiou and Fredrick Leighton (all gay fixtures of that time period). Sargent was well know in Paris circles for having sexual relationships with men. He never married or fathered children and after his death his family destroyed all correspondence he left behind. If that wasn’t enough proof, Sargent’s large portfolio of private male nude drawings and paintings display his sensual and romantic approach to painting men. John Singer Sargent lives on as one of the greatest artist that walked the earth, but he was also one of the most inspiring and important gay men that ever lived.
Tag Archives: ART
Artist Walead Beshty Shipped Glass Boxes Inside FedEx Boxes to Produce Shattered Sculptures
cant tell if pretentious or just petty about their experience with fedex
Feels like your interaction with anons goes YOU: *produces art because you enjoy it* ANON: Have some unsolicited advice. You should do the art I want you to do. Because that would get you more followers/be more respectable/be more worthwhile. YOU: I’m good. I enjoy my art. I’m not doing it for *outcome they offered* ANON: You!! Enjoy your own art!! You create it without me in mind!! How dare!! Here are reasons you shouldn’t!!!
This is accurate, but it isn’t just anons. It’s virtually everyone to some degree.
I don’t mean offense by that. Most of the time, people just want to help. Or they’re excited. I even do it to other girls myself sometimes. We give unsolicited advice, suggestions, “you should”s and so on.
We try to control, even in the most well meaning way, what women do with their talents. We want to have a say in a woman’s behavior.
It’s a cynical way to think, but in my experience, it’s not a big step all to go from “You should try this” to “I was just trying to help” to “Wow you’re a bitch for not letting me control you.” It’s breathtaking to me sometimes how quickly and willingly people turn on you this way because of the expectation that you exist for them rather than for yourself. And it’s a very strong expectation, one you probably don’t think you have.
But it’s there when people tell me to turn off anons or say nasty things because I’m not dealing with hate the way they want me to. It’s there when people tell me who I should draw. It’s there when people say, under their breath, “I wish she wouldn’t copy photos.” “I wish you would behave according to me.”
And we’re not shy about it, especially when we think we’re being helpful. The need to rescue (and the expectation that women need to be rescued, even if from no one else but their own inherent bad judgment or “sin”) is deeply ingrained in our society. It’s in our laws, our religion, our commerce.
Think about all the ways, even the ways you believe to be harmless or helpful or barely there, that you feel you’re allowed, entitled, or even expected to take personal sovereignty from a woman. ❤
Hi Lestat ! I have a question for you… Have or would you a tattoo ? If yes, What kind ? Calligraphy with silly words, an animal, roses ? I’m curious.
♛I love decorating my body with jewelry and clothing, why not tattoos? The artistry with some of them has become quite stunning. Especially the ‘watercolor’ methods. Abstract or specific, body art is very much art. I like biting directly into it on my victims, too. These neck tattoos… *licks lips*
A little story for you… I discovered sometime in the 90’s that we can be tattooed, but that the tattoo will fade away entirely during the deathsleep. Daniel may have been involved. Of course we decided that I absolutely had to get a large tattoo across my chest that read, “Property of Louis” in huge black calligraphic lettering, just to see Louis’ reaction. When I spread open my shirt to reveal the work of art, every drop of blood drained from his face!
He was frozen in that special moment before the judgment begins. It was a sight to behold. Instead of lay in with the judgment as usual, he actually shifted into damage control, terrified it would last forever, and immediately started looking into laser-removal treatments! He fell asleep at the computer that morning and had to be carried safely to bed.
How relieved was he when my branding had disappeared by the following night? After some heavy physical punishment to my person, he treated me very well for the entire night. How so? Read between the lines, mes petits.
Wait, what’s wrong with tale of the body thief ? I haven’t read that one yet..
There is PLENTY wrong with TOBT. Plenty. So much so that there are many fandom ppl who don’t consider it canon.
I’ve seen attitudes about this book change over time. In ‘94, when that book was 2 yrs old, I remember ppl telling me they felt the series had ended with QOTD, bc TOBT was written off as simply being “the body-swap episode” (many films and TV series have tried their hand at that concept, and it’s usually a wacky ride). When Memnoch the Devil came out in ‘95, ppl didn’t like that one either, too offensive for its ideas about religion, and/or too preposterous of a plot; TOBT + MTD seemed to confirm that VC had jumped the shark, and a lot of ppl decided that the series ended at QOTD.
TOBT has wackiness in it, I mean, the difficulty of peeing (with a dick) is described in such vivid detail, there’s just too much comedy in it for me to discard it all outright.
(Oh! And perfect cinnamon roll Mojo the doge is in this book <3)
(Trying not to spoil it too much here but it’s pretty obvious what happens, but POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD)
If TOBT was really just “the body-swap episode,” it could be written off as “wacky,” we could talk about the silliness of the details of the body swap, all that. We could even talk about how frustrating it was that Lestat went into a deal with a self-proclaimed THIEF and assumed that this dude would, you know, HONOR THE TERMS OF THEIR DEAL to the letter, but such were the poor state of the trust issues of our lovable but hamburger-brained moron de Lioncourt at that point in canon. He was also extra vulnerable to being taken advantage of bc he was feeling unworthy of life at all and pulled an Icarus ;A;
^So this was the cover for the edition that I read, it’s the first edition that was published. And the cover actually is relevant to this story, bc the statue you see here getting enveloped in a gray mist (it was a dull silver in real life) is The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna in Loggia dei Lanzi. I’m not going to go into a deep comparison of this to TOBT, essays can be and probably have been written on it.
I think a lot of those ppl in 1994 who wrote TOBT off as “wacky” had not actually read it bc this book takes the body horror to a place that most body-swap episodes/films wouldn’t dare to go. There are major consent issues, sexual and otherwise. There’s rape. I think AR was exploring sin and consent, she unflinchingly went there. Some ppl in the fandom refuse to accept it as canon bc they did read it and are repulsed by how far it went with these explorations.
Personally, I always advocate reading the book, and stopping if you need to, or engaging with it however works best for you. I think there are good things in that book and I think Lestat changes through the course of the story. Improvement is not always an easy trajectory. Just like in real life,
improving oneself can be a struggle, and there are often setbacks, sometimes devastating. One could say he ends up worse than he begins this story, one could say he ends up better than he begins. Just because you read/write problematic things, does not mean you condone them.
Oprah walked out of a screening of IWTV when it was first in theatres. [X] Tom Cruise told her afterwards that he wasn’t surprised. “The movie is not for everyone.” Similarly with fiction. This book is not for everyone.
[^X The pic I chose of the statue is not from the same angle as the pic used on the cover, but you get the idea.]
If I had your talent and I was wasting it on fanart where all I did was copy photos I would seriously kill myself. You’re basically a plagiarist in visual form. This is all just appalling to me, and the sheer amount of life wasted here is mindblowing. How do you live with yourself? I feel so bad for you that you think this is art. I sincerely hope when realization sinks in that you’ve done so much nothing that you have people who care because it’s going to be a rough awakening. Damn this is sad.
Uggggggghhhhh
The jealous cruelty of this anon aside… there’s such a weird expectation that artists need to be creating some kind of socially-valuable “art” at all times… or that what’s created needs to be for the consumption of others. Artists are allowed to make things for their own pleasure, things that are meaningless to anyone other than themselves, things that are practice, things that are ugly.
Happiness is valuable. It’s like, y’know, how much time do people “waste” making themselves happy? Why is it better to spend your free time watching football or playing video games or reading articles on Reddit? Why is it that as soon as you’re making something, the thing itself needs to be valuable, rather than the joy of making it?
Fanworks are valuable too, particularly for women. They’re empowering to create because you are usually taking male-created, male-marketed media and recreating for female consumption. It’s validating to consume because it gives women a place to enjoy media spaces. Its also a way to network and form communities in empty places. It’s not “wasteful” to spend time on fanworks for this reason as well.
Ugh. I wonder if guys drawing Black Widow getting nailed by aliens get these sorts of “what are you doing with your life”/“why are wasting your talent” messages. Prolly not, because this sort of hyperbolic go-kill-yourself missive is pretty much tailored to female recipients.
This is important. When I dabbled in art classes in college I had one teacher who was deadest that all our projects had to have a ‘meaning’ and be ‘socially relevant’. If you were me, and just wanted to make a faerie house full of miniature food because that sounded like a fun way to fulfill her architecture assignment, this teacher would berate you. She spent a lot of time calling me unoriginal and uncreative. She made me cry in front of the class after a particularly nasty insult suggesting what I wanted to make was meaningless drivel and that she ‘expected better of me’.
It feels shameful to admit now, but I seriously considered leaving the art field all together because of this teachers insistence that the things I enjoyed, and enjoyed making, weren’t worthwhile. And looking back now, I think that teacher did a real disservice to countless young artists. Creation itself is valuable. Every act of creation has social significance and is a product of its time. You don’t have to be political for your art to matter. You just have to love making what you make. That’s it. That what makes it art, that’s what gives it value. Anyone who tells you otherwise has bought into the bizarre status-based BS I see sometimes in the fine art world.
And if my old professor from community college happens to see this: making life-size animal sculptures out of recycled plastic in order to send a message about the environment isn’t any more unique than the faeries I wanted to make in your class. I’m glad it makes you happy, I’m glad that message resonates with you and your collectors. But try to look outside yourself and recognize putting others down when you can tell they are passionate about creating is not the right way to teach. Ever. Encourage and nurture more young artists in the world. This isn’t a race to find out who can ‘make it’ by putting people through tests. There is enough room for all of us to shine.
Look at these smart babes who follow me though
/beams with pride
I-want-my-IWTV 