The Classical He-Man

Oil on Panel, 12"x12", 2013

The Puritan He-Man

Oil on Panel, 12"x12", 2013

The Modern He-Man

Oil on Panel, 12"x12", 2013

To paraphrase Camille Paglia regarding the depiction of male genitalia throughout the history of western art, for the classical Greeks, all the way up until the Italian Renaissance, depicting the nude male was very common, and it was also the common artistic ideal to depict the nude male with tiny genitalia. It was an effort to glorify the noble achievements of man without emphasizing or denying the sexuality of man. Then along comes the puritanical Protestants, and the depictions of genitalia are removed in an effort to deny sexuality altogether. Then, as a radical reaction against this puritanism, the secular, post-modern, post-feminist world is born, and the depictions of the masculine become hypersexualized, buffoonish, and/or devoid of nobility.