There is an entire segment of this country and probably the world that finds the LGBTQ+ community to be aberrant and a relatively new phenomenon. A common saying is that “A picture is worth a thousand words” so I want to look at some images from the past in order to show that this is nothing new.
My wife who attended the Institute of Fine Arts in New York often speaks of her professor who told his students that their papers should walk on their footnotes.
Here, I wish my Missive to stand on its images ...
If you are aware of history or more specifically art history, you know that images of queer couples and other manners of sexuality have existed as far back as images have been recorded. Books have been written about these subjects and I am not looking at queer artists or philosophies but just works of art in Western Culture and no further afield for this brief Missive.
There is no direct proof of queer men and women in Ancient Egypt but there is circumstantial evidence in some of the art. In this illustration we have two women assumed to be married as well as two men kising, depicted below (circa 2494-2345 BCE) who were buried together by their families. I have also included a more complete image of the two men.
Then a bit later there is a courting couple illustrated on the interior of an Attic Greek Cup. The painter is said to be from Colmar circa 500-450 BCE. The object is in the Louvre.
After Greece, the next great period for art is in ancient Rome and here we find a fragment of a wall fresco showing two women dating back 1-75 CE.
Then, of course, we come upon many examples of our theme dating from the Renaissance. Aside from nonspecific gender cavorting angels, a good example might be “Caravaggio’s, The Musicians (1595) in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.
Two Women Surprised by a Cat by Jean Alphonse Roehn, French (1799-1864) does not have to be explained.
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