Half-Naked Birthday: Leonardo and Thomas Hart Benton
Posted by Kathleen Benton on Apr 15, 2010
This Half-Naked Thursday, April 15th, is tax day in the US. So a few diversions from the inevitable are in order and, as always, art does provide.
This day in history is also the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889–1975). Little else will align these two artists. Born almost four hundred years apart, their styles are naturally quite different. Leonardo, working at the center of his art world at the same time of Raphael and Michelangelo, strived in his painting for classic beauty, proportion, and composition. Thomas Hart Benton, on the other hand, eschewed the art worlds of New York and Paris for a Midwestern regionalist life and subject matter and worked in a decidedly mannerist style. Leonardo was probably a homosexual and Thomas Hart Benton was a documented homophobe. I wonder how an astrologist would work out all these contradictions.
Here are examples of each artists approach to myth:
Apple of Discord, 1949. Tempera glazed with oil on gessoed mahogany panel, 33 ½ x 43 ¼ inches, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Thomas Hart Benton, Persephone, ca. 1938, Alternate Title: Rape of Persephone, Tempera with oil glazes on canvas mounted on panel, 72 1/8 x 56 1/16 inches, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri
For more scholarly information on Leonardo probable homosexuality and an extensive bibliography for further reading click here. For more on Thomas Hart Benton’s life and views read his biography at The Artchive.
Kathleen Benton
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