The beauty of boys

2012-01-23T21:21:00.001-08:00

2011-11-10T23:53:00.000-08:00

NEW BLOG TO CHECK OUT: Sensual, provocative,young-male themed literature from an Indie author. http://nicholasshapiroauthor.blogspot.com/

Wilhelm von Gloeden (1856 – 1931) was a photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his nude studies of Sicilian boys, which usually featured props suggesting a setting in the Greece or Italy of antiquity. From a modern standpoint, his work is commendable due to his controlled use of lighting as well as the often elegant poses of his models.

The Genesis Children is a quirky art-house film from the early seventies, without much of a plot, mainly involving young teenage boys wandering and swimming naked in an isolated cove overlooking a calm sea. Lost for decades, the film is beginning to re-emerge as a kind of classic.

Here's a link to watch it online; http://www.novamov.com/video/4bc38d16accbf

The Genesis Children

2011-11-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

There is an arrangement of the hair - abundant, long-fringed, swept distinctively forward, that really enhances boyish beauty.

The Folding Star, by Alan Hollinghurst, follows Edward Manners, in his early thirties, as he escapes to a Flemish city in search of a new life. Almost at once he falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Luc Altidore. It is an extraordinary book which takes the reader into a world of obsession and mystery.

This is the beautiful cover to Nicholas Shapiro's outstanding recent novel Corpus Christi Carroll, a tale about obsession with a young teenage boy, the eponymous character of the title. Told in lush, literary prose, it captures everything about teenage boy beauty, and adolescence; a modern re-thinking of Thomas mann's Death in Venice, crossed with Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita; full of humour and eroticism, it will draw you on to its dark, inevitable, conclusion. I found it on Amazon; here's the link, look forward to the comments of fellow readers.

http://www.amazon.com/Corpus-Christi-Carroll-ebook/dp/B005X0MSFM/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320883664&sr=1-3

Good Lord! This book is so good I became as obsessed as the book's protagonist reading it!

By Anonymous on 17/11/11

2011-11-10T00:10:00.000-08:00

Almost inadvertantly beautiful images arise out of mirror shots; photos taken into mirrors by young subjects wanting to post pictures of themselves; the attraction is in the basic instinct of display behind the shyness or the clowning around. Oftentimes, the composition is ideal, despite the spontaneity and amateur swiftness.

The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst, (author of The Folding Star) is a darkly erotic work, about a young aristocrat who leads a life of privilege and promiscuity. The novel is a kind of Proustian panorama of young gay life, and is told with Hollinghurst's usual intelligent, high-literary style. The sex scenes, particularly with Beckwith's teenage boy lovers, are graphic at times.
http://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Pool-Library-Alan-Hollinghurst/dp/0679722564/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320971201&sr=1-1

The War For Cole's Sexual Orientation, by Nicholas Shapiro, (author of Corpus Christi Carroll) is a thoughtful, but also highly sexual work, centered around a beautiful gay teenager, named Cole, who becomes the center of a culture war. Here's the description from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Coles-Sexual-Orientation-ebook/dp/B005V7OZSU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320970931&sr=1-1

For those of you who've enjoyed Corpus Christi Carroll as much as I have, you'll probably like this too; it'll really get you thinking.

Arthur Rimbaud was a young, bi-sexual French poet, who achieved his poetical heights as a teenager, writing nothing further after the age of twenty. Here he is, in youth, in one of only two known photos from that time.

Here he is again, given a stylish postmodern makeover.

Eros, in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"). Modern culture has Cupid as an impish, chubby-limbed, harmless icon; but the real Cupid was disobedient, carnal and reckless. here are some nice, though more sensual images in art:

The old and the new: an old sculpture of Eros, and a modern photograph - with eerie, and touching similarities:

The old and the new, again; this time a depiction of Eros in a classical painting, followed by a modern adaptation:

2011-11-09T16:37:00.000-08:00

Henry Scott Tuke was an English painter, notable for his depictions of seaside idylls featuring teenage boys. This epitomises his style; evocative of sea breezes, warmth; sensual and charming.

Tuke again, with an ancient world, arcadia approach to sunbathing. He's pretty blatant and whimsical; you expect nymphs and minor deities to drift through the painting; but the depiction of physique is charming, despite the sedulously placed grass.

Carravaggio was also prolific in his depiction of boys, involving them in mythical, biblical and allegorical scenes. Here is, I think, his best work, the myth of the boyflower, Narcissus, entranced by the beauty of his reflection.

A work by Frederich Leighton, ( A confirmed 'bachelor') entitled: 'Paulo.'

This is Bjorn Andresen, amazing from almost every angle, in Visconti's film Death in Venice, about a dissafected artist who becomes infatuated with a youth, named Tadzio, whilst holidaying in Venice.

This is Wladyslaw Moes, a young Polish boy, the actual, historical Tadzio, who the author of the novel Death in Venice, Thomas Mann, became infatuated with whilst holidaying, around the turn of the twentieth century.

2011-11-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

Skater boys have a particular appeal, because the slides, kick-flips, etc, are constantly turning and tautening the physique into interesting poses. Often shirtless, with low slung shorts showing the band of underwear, the toned body from the exercise, all make for aesthetically good imagery. Here is a shot that is more idle, and highlights the curvature, the dip and swell of the lower back and buttocks, with a faint wavy pattern of ribs.

A feature on colouring; the vivid tones and hues of the eyes, lips and hair, in some stand-out images.

Here is a selection of images portraying androgynous boys

Outside the realm of chic, high art photography, boys can be at their most attractive in the most conventional of settings: the irony and pathos of the simple suburban bedroom; bored, idle, constantly feeling the urge.

Sensual images of boys, lost in thought, quality photography in beautiful light