Portrait of Eric, Tom of Finland, 1985

Tom of Finland was an early social agitator in regard to pushing queer art as an acceptable means of expression. He took ownership over what it meant to be queer as a definitve cultural indicator. In an era which this was seen as largely derogatory he created this very empowering vision of eroctism. We often discuss the line between pornography and sexualy stimulating art through the work of artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol and others which has become a point of contention and means of belittling work that explores sexuality in the open. For many your introduction to an artist like Mapplethorpe or Tom of Finland started as an interest reserved entirely to being physically stimulated by the work yet if you stick around the work takes on a space of queer empowerment as these drawings are so unapolagetic in depicting queer people without the need to ruminate on their persecution. These figures are all encompassingly shameless and happy in their existence. Speaking towards the standard of physiques that Tom would employ he brought about a kind of protest in depicting gay men as these hypermasculinized authority figures. It questions our conception of what presenting as "masculine" or "feminine" means in the context of sex. Part of the means of harrasing gay people was demasculinizing them. The archetypes that Tom and similar artists delve into are relatively modern interpretations in the grander scheme of art history and representation of powerful male figures. Looking at art from early Greece or western europe in the high renessance we didn't necesarily have these gender norms, gender and sexuality were both very fluid and the representation of the "ideal male" did often take on feminine traits such as The Bronze David by italian sculpter Donatello whose adrogynous features and contrapaston stance act as symbols of power. (Week 12)