Olympic Photos by Paul Richer - Part 12

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Performers - Part 80

 RITE by Florence Peake

Igor Stravinsky was a Russian composer.  In his 1913 ballet The Rite of Spring, the plot involves primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring in which a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death.  The music is very avant-garde compared to classical music by previous composers such as Tchaikovsky.  The premiere performance of the ballet in 1913 caused a near-riot.  There was no nudity involved – it was the music and the choreography (which involved stomping) that the audience objected to.

Above is Igor Stravinsky in 1912.  He sent this photo to French composer Florent Schmitt with the comment "I send you my nude body, which is not to be seen elsewhere."

In 2018, Florence Peake created a "performance work" partly based on The Rite of Spring called RITE, which critics described as "a primal, erotically charged mud fest."  The mud fest was staged in the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, England.  Three naked women and two naked men performed on a landscape of wet clay.

First the clothed dancers made things out of the clay.  The dancers became naked and the clay became waterlogged.

The dancers flung clay in fistfuls at the wall while the audience cowered.

It was only during the last ten minutes that a recording of part of the Sacrificial Dance from The Rite of Spring was played.

At the end, Florence Peake (dressed, at center) posed with the performers.  Perhaps it was not a deathless work like The Rite of Spring, which is now considered a masterpiece, but almost anything goes in the name of art.

Photographers - Part 80

Eugene Strait

Eugene Strait, above, lives in Italy.  Unlike some of the other photographers we have covered, Strait's work does not merely include a few male nudes.  All of his photographs are of naked men.  However, he goes further, giving the photos titles that are thought-provoking, creating visual stories in the viewer's imagination.

Consider the photo above.  He titled it "Behold the man."  Of course that alludes to the words "Ecce homo" (behold the man) from the Bible, spoken by Pontius Pilate when he presented Jesus wearing a crown of thorns before his crucifixion, which has become an image in Western art.

But this isn't Jesus.  This is a different "behold the man."  Perhaps it means "Behold the gay man."  Perhaps it means "Behold what men do."

The photo above is titled "Contemplation."  Indeed, he looks contemplative, but he is also a subject for our contemplation.

Another figure of contemplation.  This one is titled "Contemplative Titan."

"Contours of Strength."  We certainly see his contours, but does strength refer to his muscles?  Or his strength of character, posing naked?  And what about the hat?  The photo suggests that there's a story here.

"Eyes on me."  Certainly, eyes are on the figure lit by a spotlight.  But is he being interrogated?  Again, there's a story here.

"Power Profile." This one might be a bit simpler.  Yes, he looks powerful.

We end with "Nocturne Thought."  Perhaps he's thinking about nocturnal activity with someone special.  Again, there's a story here.

Eugene Strait has produced many more nude male photos.  This is only a sampling.

Calendars - Part 81

 Bears Illustrated 2021

Bears Illustrated is an independent illustration project.  For many years it produced a yearly downloadable calendar featuring artwork, not photographs, of bears by international artists.  Not every month featured nudity, but several of them did, as we see in these images from the 2021 calendar.

Above is the image for March by greek artist Zestybob.

April is by Spanish artist Mamanuel.

May is by French artist Bullzilla.

August is by New York artist James Dillenbeck.

October is a Halloween image by Spanish artist Suso.  Ghosts with penises!

We end with the December image by Taiwanese artist Makotobear.

Protests - Part 80

 Naked Handstander, part 5

This is the last part of our mini-series on the Naked Handstander, Jonathan Scholes from Australia.  He has been doing naked handstands all over the world as a form of protest.  Here he is in Utrecht, The Netherlands in 2014.

What is he protesting?  Planned obsolescence – products that are deliberately designed to have a short lifespan so consumers have to buy or upgrade them over and over again.  He hopes that his naked handstands will help draw attention to this issue.

Above, he does a naked handstand in Seoul, South Korea.

Stockholm, Sweden.

The Swedish forest in 2011.

Koh Phi Phi, Thailand.

Brighton beach, England.

London, England, 2011.  That's Tower Bridge in the background.

We end with a naked handstand in New York in 2012.

Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 59

Ivy League Posture Photos

Yale started taking nude photos of incoming freshmen in 1919 as part of a program to detect and correct posture problems.  The Yale photos have erroneously been associated with William Sheldon, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Nazi-like eugenic theories who used Harvard nude posture photos to illustrate his theory of somatypes.  The Yale program predates Sheldon, and, as far as I can tell, the Yale photos were never connected to Sheldon's work.

Here are posture photos of nine more Yale students that I had the opportunity to acquire.

This is Yale freshman Donald K. Richter on October 26, 1964.

In 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to photograph the front, rear, side and top view.

This is Yale freshman W. R. on October 20, 1964.

Note the strange pins stuck to each student's back and chest.

This is Yale freshman G. H. on September 29, 1962.

The pins were stuck on at specific points for later posture analysis.

This is Yale freshman H. H. on October 16, 1963.

Supposedly, by examining the angles formed by connecting the points where the pins touched the body, certain posture problems could be detected.

This is Yale freshman J. R. on October 17, 1963.

If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions, and a second posture photo was taken.

This is Yale freshman William Wurts White, Jr. on September 28, 1951.

Photos taken before 1952 show only a side view.

This is Yale freshman Gunars Valdis Zagars on September 28, 1951.

The photography and analysis of the photos was conducted by the staff of Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

This is Yale freshman Richard James Cravens on February 1, 1951.

Nobody outside the gymnasium staff saw the photos, and the photos were not published for other students to see.

This is Yale freshman Richard Theodore Gallen on January 15, 1951.

The posture photo program was discontinued in the 1960s, and later, most of the photos were burned.  However, some of the photos escaped burning, including the photos that I have been showing in this series.

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Note: some of my followers consider these photos an invasion of privacy for the students.  To protect the privacy of the students, I redact the names of students who may still be alive.  I only publish the names of students who have died.  Legally, the right to privacy does not extend beyond death, i.e. it does not extend to spouses and relatives of the deceased person.

I consider these photos to be a historical record of the time.  Almost all of the Ivy League posture photos were burned when their existence became widely known.  In my opinion, that was akin to book-burning of books that someone claimed were obscene.  These photos are not obscene.  They should be celebrated, not hidden away.