Born On This Day- August 19th... Gustave Caillebotte

Several years ago, a favorite chocolate company- TCHO, out of San Francisco, had a series of bars with beautiful labels featuring Impressionist paintings from the de Young Museum’s Masterpieces from the Musee d’ Orsay exhibit. One bar featured an image that held my interest in no small way. It was a detail from an astonishing painting of 2 shirtless, muscled men planing a wood floor. The artist was someone that I was not familiar with. I was soon on the hunt to learn all about him. The Husband pointed out the same image was on the cover of a book of 19th century gay erotica, a gift from him 20 years ago. Perhaps I had just jumped right into reading that book & never studied the cover. In the Summer of 2010, I became fascinated with painter- Gustave Caillebotte, reading everything I could find on the artist & studying copies of his paintings.


Gustave Caillebotte used to be dismissed as a minor outsider of French Impressionism. He was much younger than the main gang. He was personally very rich, & collected & supported their work. He was an excellent curator, & arranged many of their exhibitions. He paintings were rather somewhat non-impressionistic. He was modest about his talents. In his latter years, he painted less, devoting his time to gardening & boating. But from his 1st participation in an Impressionist exhibition, with paintings of modern Parisian life, he showed an entirely singular vein of invention: painting male nudes & producing work with an overt gay sensibility. For all his adult life he feared he would die young, & did, for no clear reason, at age 45.

Caillebotte stands apart among the Impressionists. His paintings depict working-class men in an urban context in full transformation. Caillebotte also used very innovative perspectives. His paintings are rather personal, autobiographical. You feel as if you were spying on a very private man, whose short life remains a mystery. He was an artist who was an Impressionist by association rather than by style or temperament.

His career as an artist feels unresolved. Certainly it was short. He stopped painting in a focused way in his 30s. By the 1890s he had become a semi-recluse at his estate- Petit-Gennevilliers, a property on the banks of the Seine near Argenteuil. He ceased showing his work at age 34 & devoted himself to gardening & to building & racing yachts, & with his friend Renoir, who often came to stay at Petit-Gennevilliers, they would have discussions on art, politics, literature, & philosophy. Caillebotte died there.

Self Portrait of the artist

His paintings & drawings are full of male bodies, often with a concealed face, often setting the bourgeois with the working class.The painting that grabbed me is The Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs de parquet). It shows men at work, shirtless, showing their muscular bodies. His row men also produce erotic feelings. In the Self-Portrait at the Easel (Autoportrait au chevalet), the artist is painting in his studio, while in the background a man, the bottom half of his face concealed by the painter's arm, reads on a coach. A through line of melancholy flows from the paintings... & a definitive homo-eroticism.

Self Portrait... he seems to have been a beautiful man

I knew nothing of Caillebotte before that chocolate bar, but I enjoyed the research of his enigmatic life. He never married or seemed to have any relationship with a woman, spending his time gardening, rowing,& befriending & painting interesting, handsome men. In 2010, when I first posted my proposition that Caillebotte might have been a homosexual, I received a comment from one his distant relatives, insisting that such a thing that could not be possible.

This is the image from the chocolate. It started a summer of research about the painter.

Alexander Was Great

Are you into Greek?

Outside of Jesus Christ, Alexander III of Macedonia is probably the most important figure in Western History. He brought Greek philosophy & thought to the rest of the world in the 4th century B.C. Alexander took his army into Central Asia & then into India. Alexander the Great conquered 90% of the known world & forged an empire stretching from Greece to India by the time of his death at age 32.

The greatest emotional relationship of Alexander's life was with his BFF, general, & bodyguard- Hephaestion, the son of a Macedonian noble & a major hottie. Hephaestion's early death devastated Alexander, sending him into an extended period of grieving, which eventually contributed to Alexander's failing health, & nutty behavior during his final months.

Alexander was a real drama queen, with an impulsive nature, which contributed to some of his questionable decisions during his life. That old queen- Plutarch thought that this part of his personality was the cause of his weakness for cocktails. He was known to frequent happy hours throughout the known world. Alexander was stubborn & did not respond well to being ordered around, a situation that I undertand all too well.. Along with his fiery temperament, there was a calmer side to Alexander; perceptive, logical, & calculating. He had a great thirst for knowledge, a love for philosophy, a big fan of Greek Musical Comedies & he was an avid reader.

Alexander was said to be extremely handsome. Many portraits of him were made in his lifetime. It was recorded that he had a very pleasant body odor & breath, which for the times must have been remarkable… if you know what I mean. He was a major gym bunny who loved strenuous exercise & would often hit the gym. He could jump off & then back on a chariot moving at full speed. His BF- Hephaestion was taller & even more handsome; you know that kind of power couple. The Persian Queen bowed to him instead of Alexander when she was presented to them. Alexander said to the mortified queen "Never mind, Mother, Hephaestion is also Alexander.”

Unfortunately, Hephaestion & Alexander were never able to enjoy their house in The Pines on Fire Island & because they were so busy conquering the world, they were rarely able to use their townhouse in the West Village.

Like Portland, Oregon & other urban hipster centers in the 21st century, sexual attraction between men was considered normal in Classical Greece as well as in Alexander's time. Men of culture & education like Alexander loved beauty… & there was beauty to be ransacked all over the world. Alexander turns 2368 years old today.

Born On This Day- April 15th... Renaissance Man Leonardo da Vinci

In his childhood, the Husband was so entranced by a book on the life of Leonardo da Vinci that he taught himself to write in "mirror", that can only be read by holding it up to a reflection, a skill practiced by the often secretive Leonardo. The Husband can still do the mirror writing to this day & is himself, a bit of a Renaissance man.

self portrait

Leonardo da Vinci was denied an education & a profession because he was born out of wedlock in 1452. One of the few professions for the son of a middle class notary & a peasant girl was art. Despite the stigma of being a bastard Leonardo mastered anatomy, architecture, botany, cartography,  engineering, mathematics, music, science, sculpture, sketching, & painting.



When he was 24, Leonardo  & 3 young companions were arrested on the charge of sodomy. No witnesses appeared against them & eventually the charges were dropped.  Although he was not convicted, the accusation may have tormented Leonardo throughout his life. It seems clear to me that Leonardo was homosexual. He kept his private life very private, but throughout his entire life, Leonardo surrounded himself with attractive men. His relationship with the beautiful curly haired Gian Giacomo de' Caprotti lasted 20 years. In the last 10 years of Leonardo's life, his companion was the much younger Francesco Melzi, who would later serve as the executor of Leonardo’s estate.


Leonardo possessed the greatest mind of the Italian Renaissance. He wanted to know the workings of what he saw in nature. his inventions & scientific studies were centuries ahead of his time. He was the first person to study scientifically study the flight of birds. Leonardo's contribution to art was even greater. He had a strong influence on other artists, especially Raphael & Michelangelo. Leonardo's balanced compositions became the standard for later Renaissance art. Painters tried to imitate Leonardo's perspective, knowledge of anatomy, & observations of nature. His inventiveness, versatility, & intellectual curiosity show Leonardo to be the epitome of the Renaissance spirit. 6 centuries later, the world is still in awe.

Born On This Day- December 11th... Artisit Mark Tobey

The Husband & your host lived in Seattle for 20 years (1981-2001), where Mark Tobey was rather the patron saint of Pacific Northwest painting. The Seattle Art Museum has a large selection of his work & his paintings are ubiquitous in important Seattle Microsoft executives’ collections.

Self Portrait 1920

A painter of small abstract works with underlying religious themes as well as illustrator & muralist, Mark Tobey remains known primarily for his "white writing" paintings that give the impression of being expansive and much larger than they actually are.

Finding the Bahai World faith in 1918 & later Zen Buddhism was essential to Tobey's life & work, with themes of oneness & progression. His commitment to spiritual expression in painting, gave Tobey a renowned reputation as a modernist but h moree appreciated in Europe & Asia than in the USA.

Tobey:"There have been 32 isms since the advent of cubism, we have just been confused by the storm. . . we forget that there are today great men in the religious field with as much to offer. . . religion like science must be balanced to bring men to a state of equilibrium & that and that only will bring peace."

Tobey was mid-west born & raised. In Chicago he briefly attended the Art Institute School. He worked as a commercial illustrator, & from 1911 to 1922, he lived & worked in NYC where he did fashion illustration for McCalls magazine & other publications.

Between 1923 & 1960, he lived in Seattle & Paris. In Seattle, where he worked closely with artists in the city’s large Asian community, he studied Chinese brush-work.

Living in Seattle, he developed his signature technique of "white writing", linked to Asian calligraphy. His paintings reflect substance but not solidity, suggesting space with non-space & strokes of spirituality of the cosmos.

He was the first painter of the Pacific Northwest School to achieve international fame. Personally, he was an irritable, irascible man with many difficult relationships & only a few close friends.

A man of his time, he was not fully out of the closet, but his homosexuality was an open secret. In 1960 Tobey moved to Basel, Switzerland with his partner of 20 years, artist- Pehr Hallsten & his secretary- Mark Ritter. Tobey continued to live with Ritter, after Hallsten's death in 1966, He served as Chairman of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Basel for 16 years until his death in 1976. Tobey would have been 121 years old today.

Canticle 1960

Born 536 Years Ago Today- Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

I am so very lucky indeed; I have actually seen his work, not just in Art History 101, but close up. In Italy.

Some of the most famous, poetry, sculpture, painting & architecture in the world was created by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, who spent most of his lengthy career creating colossal works of art for 7 consecutive Popes. Regarded as the greatest living artist of his day, he remains one of the impressive artists of all time. Among his creations: the Pieta, David, the Sistine Chapel, the Laurentian Library, the Last Judgment, St. Peter's Basilica. The Renaissance painter & sculptor whose frescoes adorn the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican was put in charge of the restoration of St. Peter’s by Pope Paul III in 1546, a job he held until his death in 1564. His greatest contribution to the basilica is its central dome or cupola, a universally acknowledged architectural triumph.

Michelangelo wrote 48 epigrams commemorating the adoration of his young lover Cecchino dei Bracci who died at age 16. The drawings, with legs spread wide & thighs for days, are of Tommaso De'Cavalieri, a handsome young nobleman, whom he met in 1532 when he was 57 & Tommaso 23. Michelangelo wrote 300 beautiful, astounding sonnets to him that became a much loved book after his death. Michelangelo wrote love letters & ardent poems to him & in 1533 sent him a series of erotic drawings, the most famous of which depicts Zeus disguised as an eagle abducting a young Ganymede. In Michelangelo's drawing, the eagle presses its body tightly against the back of the smiling, yielding Ganymede. The drawings, with legs spread wide & the thighs to die for, were likely in the image of Tommaso De'Cavalieri. The 2 men were lovers for over 30 years.

 Michelangelo's poems to Cavalieri were extravagant:


“Your name nourishes my heart & soul filing each with such sweetness
If my eyes had their share of you, only think how happy I would be.
Were I two slippers he could own &
use as base to his majestic weight,
I would enjoy two snowy feet at least.”


“If I must be defeated to be blessed,
Don't marvel that one, naked & alone,
should prove a prisoner of an armored knight.
The love I speak of aspires to the heights;
woman is too dissimilar, & it ill becomes
a wise & manly heart to burn for her.”


Michelangelo seems to have more inhibited about his sexuality than Leonardo da Vinci, but Leonardo lived in Florence & Michelangelo in Rome, a generation later, & the time & place were not as permissive.

& then there is that 13 foot hunk of rock hard man that I met one day at The Academia in Florence. We had such a hot time.