spotlight
EARLY LGBT ARTISTS
PAINTING PROGRESS, EXECUTING CHANGE
ON THE CANVAS AND OFF by joel martens Art is the lens through which we can examine the world we live in: Who we are, who we have
been and what we might become. It is a bridge spanning the space between the literal and the unknowable, things established and what we wish to examine and discern. It is the way for us to embrace, know and remember the beauty of the world before us and in turn, the way to reach below what is known and challenge the perceptions we hold those things.
Artists have often taken on the established morays of their time and pushed the boundaries of convention over the course of history. And the LGBT community is ripe with examples of those
who have defied convention and broken away from the injustice of societal judgement. They have done so, both literally and figuratively, as express through their artistry and in the way that they lived their lives. Fame came to many because of their unquestionable talents, though for others, notoriety sometimes surpassed it as they refused to follow convention and boldly embraced who they were sexually. In doing so, these artists intrinsically challenged both artistically and viscerally the constraints of society’s morays and helped blaze a trail for the queer community at large.
The following are a few of our favorite painters from the 19th and 20th century world, who broke free and gave us some of the world’s earliest and most unforgettable moments, artistically and personally. Some because of their chosen subject matter and others even more so by how they
lived their lives. And before you criticize, this is in no way a comprehensive catalogue, for that we’d need to write a book.
ROSA BONHEUR (1822 – 1899) Perhaps one of the most important 19th Century
painters of her time, Rosa Bonheur was known as much for her fame as a painter during her lifetime, as she was for her lesbianism. Born in the Bordeaux region of southwestern France to a family of artists, her mother a piano teacher, her father a landscape and portrait painter, Bonheur was raised and instructed alongside her male contemporaries at their behest of her parents who believed in the equal education for the sexes. Considered a difficult child and expelled from several schools, her artistic aptitude surfaced long before she could speak, her talent was encouraged as a way to focus her energies. Reading was a particular challenge (dyslexic one wonders?), so as a way to teach her the letters of the alphabet, she was encouraged to draw animals that corresponded to letters—a passion that would continue to develop and later influence her work throughout her lifetime. Trained primarily by her father, she would copy
imagery from books and models, graduating to live studies of domesticated animals that bordered the city of Paris where she and her family lived. Later studies included anatomy and osteology in Parisian slaughterhouses—along with detailed drawings of dissections she participated in at the National Veterinary Institute in Paris—all lifelong references used for her later works. Bonheur’s first great success came through a French government commission titled;Ploughing in the Nivernais, exhibited in 1849. Completed in 1855 and reflect- ing her ongoing passion for depicting animals, the monumentalHorse Fair is probably her most notable work, measuring over eight feet in height and sixteen feet wide. As many lesbians of her time, Bonheur often
horse fair (c1855)
wore men’s clothes, living in a relationship for 45 years with Nathalie Micas. After Nathalie’s death, American artist Anna Elizabeth Klumpke became Rosa’s second wife...and her biographer. Bonheur’s passion for her painting is reflected in this quote, “Art is a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body. The entireness of the votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my husband, my world, my life dream, the air I breathe. I know nothing else, feel nothing else, think nothing else.”
MARCH 2018 | RAGE monthly
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