{"id":13427,"date":"2013-02-21T03:14:43","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T03:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=13427"},"modified":"2013-02-21T03:14:43","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T03:14:43","slug":"the-art-of-konstantin-somov-1869-1939","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2013\/02\/21\/the-art-of-konstantin-somov-1869-1939\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of Konstantin Somov, 1869\u20131939"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov01.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov01.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Naked Young Man (1937).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The work of Russian painter Konstantin Somov has a decent presence on the web, albeit separated into his public works which comprised portraits, landscapes and illustrations, and his more private, homoerotic studies of voluptuous Russian men. The former can be seen at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikipaintings.org\/en\/konstantin-somov\/mode\/all-paintings\" target=\"_blank\">WikiPaintings<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.the-athenaeum.org\/art\/list.php?s=tu&amp;m=a&amp;aid=4470&amp;p=1\" target=\"_blank\">The Atheneum<\/a> where there&#8217;s a recurrent theme of rococo fantasy similar to that being explored by Rex Whistler in Britain between the wars. (Whistler&#8217;s work was recently featured at <a href=\"http:\/\/littleaugury.blogspot.co.uk\/search\/label\/Rex%20Whistler\" target=\"_blank\">Little Augury<\/a>.) It is, of course, the other side of Somov&#8217;s work that concerns us here. This gives me an opportunity to put titles and dates to some of the paintings circulating on gay art sites with no details at all.<\/p>\n<p>Somov was friends with Sergei Diaghilev, and provided illustrations and designs for Diaghilev&#8217;s <em>Mir Iskusstva<\/em> arts magazine. This year is the centenary of the first performance of <em>The Rite of Spring<\/em> so expect to hear more about the great Sergei and company in the coming months.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov02.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov02.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>The Boxer (1933).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov03.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov03.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Portrait of A Man (1933).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov04.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov04.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>A Reclining Man (1936).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov05.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov05.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Male Nude with Cigarette (1933).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov06.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov06.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>The Slumber (1933).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov07.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov07.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Reclining Male Nude (1938).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov08.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov08.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Cauchemar de la fi\u00e8vre brulante (1937).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov09.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov09.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Amour Senilis (1934).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"somov10.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/somov10.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>The Lovers (no date).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere on { feuilleton }<br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/the-gay-artists-archive\/\">The gay artists archive<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Previously on { feuilleton }<br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2010\/09\/28\/diaghilevs-world-of-art\/\">Diaghilev\u2019s World of Art<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Naked Young Man (1937). The work of Russian painter Konstantin Somov has a decent presence on the web, albeit separated into his public works which comprised portraits, landscapes and illustrations, and his more private, homoerotic studies of voluptuous Russian men. The former can be seen at WikiPaintings or The Atheneum where there&#8217;s a recurrent theme &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2013\/02\/21\/the-art-of-konstantin-somov-1869-1939\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The art of Konstantin Somov, 1869\u20131939&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,5,44],"tags":[4568,1785,4569,1777],"class_list":["post-13427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-gay","category-painting","tag-konstantin-somov","tag-mir-iskusstva","tag-rex-whistler","tag-sergei-diaghilev"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-3uz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}