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Title
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The perception of men's intimacy in the fin de siecle : a consideration via Delville's The School of Plato
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Author
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Abstract
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| Jean Delville's The School of Plato (1898) is remarkable not only as a statement piece of fin-de-siecle occulture, but also for its bold portrayal of Plato's pupils as a group of ephebes in intimate association. The canvas and its reception history lend themselves uniquely to a consideration of the complexities of an art-historiographical engagement with representations of male love, yet the majority of scholars have tended to subsume the work's 'homoeroticism' under Delville's occult preoccupations. In this essay, I attempt to unpack the male intimacy pictured by aligning art-historical analysis with queer theory and gay and lesbian history, seeking to suggest ways in which the painting may have straddled the line between normativity and deviance. I argue that its affinity with newly compact categories of subversive sexuality - then to an unprecedented extent in the public eye in Belgium - may help account for the government's stubborn refusal to purchase the work. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Art history / Association of Art Historians. - London
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Publication
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London
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2020
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ISSN
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0141-6790
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DOI
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10.1111/1467-8365.12471
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Volume/pages
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43
:1
(2020)
, p. 154-175
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ISI
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000509322300005
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
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