Research Catalog

Title

Looking at men : anatomy, masculinity and the modern male body / Anthea Callen.

Author

Callen, Anthea

Publication

• New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2018]
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

272 pages : illustrations (some color); 27 cm

Summary

"Looking at Men explores how from c.1800 to 1920, the modern male body was forged through the intimately linked professions of art and medicine, which deployed muscular models and martial arts to renew the beau idéal. The modern ideal of virile manhood derived from the athletic perfection found in the classical male nude. The study of human anatomy and dissection in art and medicine underpinned a modern gladiatorial ideal, its representations setting the parameters not just of 'normal' virile masculinity but also its abject 'other'. Through the shared violence of human dissection and martial arts, male artists and medics secured their professional privilege and authority on the bodies of 'roughs'. First and foremost visual, this process has literary parallels in Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde. While embodying signs of dominant power and signalling differences of race, class, gender and sexuality, the virile masculine ideal contained its shadow, the threat of loss, of a Darwinian 'degeneration' that required vigilant intervention to ensure the health of nations. Anthea Callen's lively and intelligent study casts a new eye on contributions by many lesser-known artists, as well as more familiar works by Géricault, Courbet, Dalou and Bazille through to Eakins, Thornycroft, Leighton and Tonks, and includes photography and images from the popular visual cultures of boxing, wrestling and bodybuilding. Callen reassesses ideas of the modern male body and virile manhood in this exploration of the heteronormative, the homosocial and the homoerotic in art, anatomy and nascent anthropology."--Jacket.

Alternative Title

Anatomy, masculinity and the modern male body

Subject

• Men in art
• Masculinity in art
• Masculinity
• Human anatomy > Social aspects
• Anatomy, Artistic
• Martial arts > Social aspects
• Martial arts in art
• Body image in men
• Medicine and art

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 226-263) and index.

Contents

Introduction: on looking at men -- The body and difference: artistic anatomy and the beau idéal -- La lutte: masculinity, muscularity and the martial arts of anatomy -- Doubles and desire: anatomies of conflicted masculinity -- Size matters: the measurement of man and ideals of the labouring body -- Masculinity and monstrosity: the body in pieces.

Call Number

JQF 19-230

ISBN

• 9780300112948
• 0300112947

LCCN

2018935324

OCLC

1046072373

Author

Callen, Anthea, author.

Title

Looking at men : anatomy, masculinity and the modern male body / Anthea Callen.

Publisher

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2018]

Copyright Date

©2018

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 226-263) and index.

Local Note

AUTH: AUSTRALIAN NATL. U. EXAMINES CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF MALE FORM IN ART/MEDICINE, 1800-1920.

Research Call Number

JQF 19-230