Elatus from Pandaemonium I (Centaurs) (2010) by David Trullo.
One of a series of centaur portraits by Spanish artist David Trullo. Placing characters from Classical mythology in contemporary settings makes a change. The title Pandaemonium I implies further series so I’m curious to see how Trullo follows these.
Battling Centaurs (1873) by Arnold Böcklin.
Centaurs had a flush of popularity in Germanic art of the 19th century; Franz Stuck painted them a number of times and Jugend magazine is littered with many often grotesque representations. I’ve never seen an explanation for this resurgence of interest. Is it because a man/horse hybrid is a potent symbol of masculine power? Arnold Böcklin’s painting is one of the better examples and suits its title more than Michelangelo’s famous sculpture in which the hybrids are lost in a tangle of writhing bodies.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Mermaids
• The Masks of Medusa
My favourite centaurs are the ones in Piero di Cosimo’s Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs, especially the dying centaur and his lady at centre front. I wonder was Piero one of the first artists to give sort-of-supernatural beings like centaurs and fauns pointy ears.
The main problem with depictions of centaurs is their genitals – do they have two sets (as in a John Varley novel I can’t remember the title of) or none at all? Neither solution seems quite right.
David Trullo with Guillermo Pérez Villalta, are the most active artists in the current Spanish gay scene.
Pe-Jota: Yes, I’d seen some of his earlier work on gay news sites.
AlyxL: The Greeks gave satyrs and fauns pointed ears (not sure about their centaurs) so they’re probably the origin of all pointy-eared creatures who follow. I’ve always considered centaurs to have genitals where the stallion would have them. At least they get a set, unlike mer-creatures who often seem quite sexless despite the reputation they have for luring humans into the deep.
I came across the “Centaurs” entry from 2010 in a search for gay art/imagery involving sex between gay centaurs.Has any ‘serious’ artist produced any work that depicts the act of mounting and penetration? There’s the occasional,badly-drawn/painted,’comic-book’ image-with ill-proportioned centaurs-but no real art.Is there another website somewhere? J.H.
Hi John. Not that I’ve seen, I would have remembered if I’d run across anything more substantial than the usual furry sketches.