Adam: The Male Figure in Art

by Edward Lucie-Smith

Adam reveals a history of the male in art of every medium. This book shows how the heroic nude traversed the centuries from ancient Rome to the "peplum" movies of the 1950s, how a tamer, feminized male made his appearance in the flirtatious paintings of the French rococo, how the Christian shame of nudity was overcome in representations of the crucifixion or images of martyrdom, and how the baroque artists exaggerated male characteristics to create super-males. Work of artists as diverse as Leonardo Fragonard, Beardsley, Nadar and Weber - and the historic contributions of men from David Bowie to Arnold Schwartzenegger to the Nuba warrior - combine to make Adam a fascinating and entertaining trip through the history of art and sexuality.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith, known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is an English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster.

Lucie-Smith was born in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to the United Kingdom in 1946. He was educated at The King's School, Canterbury, and, after a little time in Paris, he read History at Merton College, Oxford from 1951 to 1954.

After serving in the Royal Air Force as an Education Officer and working as a copywriter, he became a full-time writer (as well as anthologist and photographer). He succeeded Philip Hobsbaum in organising The Group, a London-centred poets' group.

At the beginning of the 1980s he conducted several series of interviews, Conversations with Artists, for BBC Radio 3. He is also a regular contributor to The London Magazine, in which he writes art reviews. A prolific writer, he has written more than one hundred books in total on a variety of subjects, chiefly art history as well as biographies and poetry.

In addition he has curated a number of art exhibitions, including three Peter Moores projects at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; the New British Painting (1988–90) and two retrospectives at the New Orleans Museum of Art. He is a curator of the Bermondsey Project Space.

Reviews

[Aidan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a confusing one. It's not quite clear what exactly the author is writing about. The focus is muddy and obscure.

Another unappealing aspect I've noticed about this book, is that a lot of the works the author describes in text or mentions in connection to art theory, are not represented in images. The images are sometimes by artists not mentioned in text at all, or described only passingly. So, in order to understand the text you'll have to look up the images yourself from a third source; and the images that are reproduced in the book find no mention in the text, so, why they have been chosen and represented remains anybody's guess.

I'm reading a book titled The Male Figure in Art and for some reason I don't feel like I'm reading about the male figure at all. It's too academic. It's gotten stuck somewhere on theorizing and analysis, and missed the actual subject matter.

[Mere Rain]

Conclusion: the male nude as a subject for art is currently going through one of its periods of radical transition. Given a central role by the Greeks, then banished for long periods by Christian asceticism and hatred of the body, it was revived by the Renaissance, only to fall victim, but only very gradually, to the social and economic forces which created modern society. Now that very society is beginning to feel a need for this range of imagery again, while remaining somewhat afraid of the darker forces to which it seems to appeal.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you look at the bibliography for Edward Lucie-Smith it is huge and, to be polite, a great deal of it was not very good. The Lucie-Smith name is more brand than proof of serious scholarly input. I am unkind enough to wonder if the vast majority weren't produced by his graduate students under his supervision.

There is a little new, even for when it was published in 1998 and it is a type of book conceived of by it's publisher's marketing department that I dislike for one major reason - the images discussed in the text all to often do not relate to the images available. This shows the disconnect between the writing and the book production.

I wouldn't give shelf space to it but others might like it.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but not a keeper. What I disliked about this book is that the author commented on certain works of art and probably didn't get the copyright to publish the print in his book. There were pages of other works that the author did not comment about. I did find interesting his comments about early anti-pornography feminism claiming the portrayal of a naked woman humiliating for women, but they hit a wall when gay artists started doing portrayals of nude men in their art and was directed at other gay men.

[Ryan Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

ADAM examines themes of strength, vulnerability, and eroticism effectively. The book contains intelligent observations and moments of sharp analysis, but its academic density and lack of clear focus prevent it from becoming a fully realized or comprehensive study. For readers interested in theoretical perspectives on sexuality, gender, and masculinity, and in how femininity can be intertwined with these ideas in some representations of men, the book is still quite rewarding. And for all intents and purposes, it's a beautiful coffee-table art book, much like The Male Nude by David Leddick (Ed.) Read my full review over on my BLOG at www.ryanlawrenceauthor.ca

[Jeff Davault · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting overview of the metamorphosis of the male image over the ages. As another reviewer mentioned, there were also many works mentioned, but not pictured, which would have made it a fuller and more comprehensive work. If you read it with a browser open, you can track track the images mentioned, but that seems an unnecessary requirement for an art history overview.