Androgyny, models, and Renaissance artists.

[ArabeIIaScott]

https://daily.jstor.org/delts-dont-lie/

An interesting look at the practise of using male models for female subjects.

(The footnote is a bit baffling, I can't see how it's at all relevant, or the necessity to claim that TWAW, but I suppose it's required these days in the way that fig leaves were applied to statues.)

Another related article on Michaelangelo's use of 'men with breasts' to show women:

https://renresearch.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/men-with-breasts2/

Really interesting article, thank you.

Agree about the footnote- screeching handbrake turn there. I wonder what the 'uncorrected' version said.

I know! I was scanning the article for where the wrongthink happened - I guess we will never know.

I wonder what Michaelangelo thought he was doing this way. I thought all the possible theories were very plausible. Though I think it's wrong to believe using a male body equals 'androgyny', it's plausible to think Mixhaelangelo might have thought that.

I wonder if the offending parts came in that very short paragraph starting 'The scholarly debate'...

I understood the androgyny bit to relate more to the idealising of androgyny as a concept of the time?

'the growing popularity of androgynous depictions in circles of Renaissance Italy. After all, this was the era when humanist Mario Equicola wrote that, “the effeminate male and the manly female are graceful in almost every aspect.” Just as Michelangelo gave some of his women bulging muscles, other artists gave men younger, more effeminate faces and hips'

Aha.

Here's the original:

https://archive.li/Ma6kw

Looks like you were correct, Permanent:

'The scholarly debate over whether Michelangelo’s women elevate the androgynous figure or denigrate the feminine one (or both) remains timely as politicians and activists argue over how protections for women can coexist with protections for transgender and nonbinary people. The question continues to be explored in this modern context'

Updated paragraph:

'The scholarly debate over whether Michelangelo’s women elevate the androgynous figure or denigrate the feminine one (or both) remains timely as politicians and activists argue anew over gender, beauty standards, and the role of women in society.'

The artists were gay, and it was their way of legally painting people they fancied. I’ll paint my boyfriend but so we don’t get thrown in jail, I’ll make him look a bit effeminate. Or maybe the boyfriend was a bit effeminate
Another theory is ,that they couldn’t get female models so they got a fellow artist to pose and stuck a pair of tits on them to make it female.
i mean even today men think all you have to do to be female is put some lipstick on.

That's certainly one of the theories @nonman. I think the article is convincing in suggesting it's not quite as simple as that?

I can certainly go along with the idea that for Michaelangelo the adult male body was the ideal form, so if he were going to paint saints and prophets he would happily use male images.

Am no kind of art historian though. I do remember i think that Raphael died of shagging too many people, mostly if not all women I think.

I’m an hobby artist and I think the simplest answer is often the correct one. Academia can read more into something than what is actually there. A lot of art is simply pragmatic. No female model? Not to worry, we’ll bung a dress on a teenager and paint that, after all the studios were full of young apprentices.

same with views and architecture in paintings things are moved around to suit the composition,

I can't believe they couldn't get a female model, women's bodies have been for sale since the dawn of time.