I hesitate to post these images because of the "questionable" subject matter. The question, of course, is what was the artist's intent in these images of young boys, often nude? And in art, generally, when does the depiction of youthful beauty cross the line and become something else? At what point does the non-graphic nude depiction of a child become exploitive? How old does a young person have to be before they are "safe" to portray naked: physically mature or emotionally mature or statutorily mature? Is the nude figure in contemporary art inherently a sexual object, or does the
relative age of the sitter influence that perception? In an era that is over-sexualized, in general - in both the Arts and in our culture - how do we make these sometimes subtle distinctions?
I think nudity is a question of context - these are all innocent, almost body studies, and not sexual in any form -wouldn't you agree?
ReplyDeleteI would. I don't think they would seem sexual to most viewers, but I still wonder about the artist's interest in this particular subject matter. And if the artist "had a thing for little boys", regardless of the manner in which he portrayed them, does it change our perception of the work? Should it? I like the work here, but it does make me a little uneasy....
DeleteObviously, you are projecting your own "uneasiness"—your anxiety about nakedness—onto Owe Zerge, even when you recognize you do not know nothing about him.
ReplyDeletePas du tout, Tiago. I was merely trying to express society's discomfort/confusion/concern when presented with images of nude children and, given that, my own discomfort in declaring that I think these are beautiful, whatever the - completely unknown - intent of the artist. (And given the nature of the work, the large place in his oeuvre devoted to the adolescent male and adolescent male nude, and the way he presented them - for the most part not in a child-like manner or setting, but posed like a classical adult nude - makes the question of his intent entirely valid.) And if I were truly uncomfortable with these images - or "nakedness" in general - I never would have put together this post in the first place.
DeleteWhat ever his "intentions" I think his work is very tasteful and executed with great skill, I especially like his drawings....!
ReplyDeleteWithout doubting for a minute the talent of this artist, how difficult would it be to portray the average Swedish man? They are so beautiful...
ReplyDeleteDo you remember Tadzio, the young man in the film Death in Venice? That Swedish boy looked like one of Mother Nature's masterpieces. And again, I had a feeling of uneasiness about what the libretto expected of Dirk Bogarde's attitude towards him.....
I'm thinking of the immense talent of another Swede, Eugene Jansson: Those landscapes! No problem in rivaling any of the greats of Impressionism!
But, the rest of his work, his obsession with the naked male figure?
Eugene Jansson's hundreds of nudes do not incite the viewer's discomfort or uneasiness. Why should it be? All of those naked and perfect looking Swedish men seem to be adults.
I totally agree with Stephen's fine tuned scalpel and its dissecting the uneasy nature of Owe Zerge's work.
Thank you, Maria! And, yes, I know Jansson's work; odd that I've never done a post about him....
DeleteOwe Zerge demonstrates great figurative-narrative artistic expression.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting blog post - your blog is new to me. Yes, it's hard to know what his sensibilities were or his motives in choosing subjects - I would hope we can someday arrive at the point of appreciating the work aside from the subject matter or other concerns. Fascinating and spectacular work here.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good internet-blog. I discover the work of Zerge right now. I only new the Sankt Sebastian before. I am art historian ... and I'm gay. Seeing this works it's clear for me he was gay. He doesn't paint girls at all. Or did he? What we see here are only young boys, even a mariner in uniform who couldn't have been in the army so young. There is a little pedofile inclination in his view. But it's not forbidden to paint kids. Rembrandt did it too. Well, not only :-)
ReplyDeleteI believe he painted other subjects (including dogs!) but he was clearly interested in, if not fixated by, young boys and young men. There is an undeniable aesthetic, beauty to the body at this age - male, or female. It’s easy to project [with our modern sensibilities] our sexualized interpretation of any nude child in art. Degas faced similar criticism when he painted nude children as bathers in the Roman period.
DeleteI don’t think he intended to exploit these boys in a sexual way, I think he was trying to capture the cusp of maturity, which he surely did. If anything, they’re anti-sexual, because they represent the preamble to the loss of “innocence”.
Thanks for the posts Stephilius & I appreciated the considered comments, which are thought provoking. My sense is that surely we only ‘overstep the mark’ when we judge other people’s intent which when unrealised, is a personal matter. The rest is usually the definition of ‘gossip’. I agree these are beautiful renditions of natural beauty onto which we must not be tempted to impose our value judgements.
DeleteWhy should we be afraid to appreciate the beauty of the human form in any of its manifestations. If Zerge was sexually interested in young males it may have given him the laser focus to render these extraordinary works. Sexualizing a work of art happens in the beholder. No doubt the ratio of his paintings with boys as his subject matter indicates a possible obsession. Still, he may not have consciously experienced this as a sexual interest, yet if he did it does in no way diminish his skill as a painter.
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