![]() | EGYPT Grave statue of Meryrahashtef, 2345BC-2181BC It was customary in ancient Egypt to place statuettes of the deceased, at different ages of his life, in the tomb. This is the youngest one, showing Meryrahashtef as a young teenager. The second in the series can be seen on the aboutcirc site. "It is carved from a single piece of ebony and mounted on a simple base of sycamore wood. The form is conventional: the young man is shown, rather exceptionally, in the nude, striding forward, his left leg advanced, his arms at his sides, fists clenched, holding truncated cylindrical objects which have been identified as small rolls of cloth. The head is covered with the conventional curled wig, very carefully carved and painted black, and the eyes, which in a superior commission would have been inlaid, are simply painted. The delineation of the facial details is sensitive and restrained: the eyebrows are lightly indicated, the nose subtly modeled, the unemphasized mouth slightly unbalanced, suggesting a wry smile. Although the attitude is conventional, it is not treated in a conventional way; the body turns and bends in a lithe manner, which was undoubtedly the intention of the artist, and not the result of a warping of the wood. The impression of energy generated is emphasized by the elongation of the left leg that strides forward." (from the British Museum catalogue) The boy is very clearly circumcised! Reproduced by permission of the British Museum. ![]() |
GREECE / ITALY Detail of a grecian (Lucanian) Bell Krater now at the University of Melbourne. The young man is full adult height but has minimal pubic hair, a very thin penis and an extraordinarily long prepuce. This is clearly depicting Greek ideals of beauty rather than reality. But he does have quite impressive pecs! The Lucanian state, in what is now Calabria, flourished from 525 to 450 BC enjoying a fragile independence from both the Greek states and the nascent Roman Republic, to which they eventually succumbed. ![]() Greek vases weren't always so chaste. Click here for one showing a homosexual orgy (you are warned). Adults only! | ![]() |
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Panel 15 of the late 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, which chronicles the Norman Conquest of England. My rough translation of the panel caption is "Where one of the priests, and this Duke William and his army, arrived, on the advice of Michael Aelfgyua". ![]() The interesting feature is the little man in the border, bottom left. You can see a detailed image of him here. He is very well-endowed and quite clearly circumcised. At that date that could only mean that he was a Jew. The images along the bottom seem to have no relation to the main pictures - the other ones on this panel show mythical beasts, but on panel 14 there is a boxing match! Presumably the ladies who embroidered the tapestry put in whatever amused them, and one was fantasizing about sex with a well-hung Jew. Thanks to "Superdude 89" for finding what may be the earliest depiction of a circumcised man in Westerm European art. |
Abraham circumcising himself at the command of the angel. From a new French translation of the Bible by Jean de Sy, commissioned in 1355 by Jean the Good, and to be financed by a tax on the Jews (!). It took some time and was completed in the reign of Charles VI. The present 12-volume manuscript was created in 1381, with illustrations by an artist known to us only as 'The Master of the Bouquetaux' or 'The Master of Jean de Sy'. He didn't complete all the illustrations, leaving some as sketches to be coloured in by another hand, but since this is an early one it is probably all his work. From the Facebook page Mediaeval Fascinations. Thanks to AM for finding it. ![]() |
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It was well-known to the painters of the Renaissance and Baroque that the Jewish characters of the Old and New Testaments were circumcised. The Feast of the Circumcision, January 1st, was an important part of the church year, and was often depicted in religious art, as shown below. Yet images of biblical characters were invariably depicted as uncircumcised. Further more, even older men were depicted with the classical small, phimotic penis even though the evidence suggests that their models would not have looked like that. The Graeco-Roman tradition still ruled!
Here are some examples:
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475‒1564) Michelangelo was inspired by classical models, but he would certainly have used a live human as the basis for the statue of David which was sculpted 1501‒1504. However, the artist wouldn’t have expected him to pose for three years! Drawings would have been made which would have been the guides for the subsequent years of work. Most sculptors built clay maquettes ‒ small scale versions of their sculptures ‒ though legend says that Michelangelo often sculpted direct into stone without maquettes. This may not be true for the statue of David, though, since the block of Carrara marble was second hand and a peculiar shape (having been abandoned during ‘roughing out’ by a previous sculptor) so the statue had to be very carefully designed to fit the stone. Thus his model would have posed for a few days while Michaelangelo made drawings and (maybe) a maquette, then the long labour of transferring it to stone would have started. |
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Giovanni Bellini (circa 1430‒1516) The reluctance to depict a circumcised penis in classical art resulted in a tendency to obscure the genitals when the subject matter was biblical circumcision, as illustrated here in Bellini’s painting The Circumcision painted circa 1511. This was a popular subject, and some pictures do show the penis pre-op, with a knife brandished above it, but neither the post-op view, or any blood, are ever visible. See our Christianity page. ![]() |
The 18th and 19th centuries were the age of the great academies. The concept started in France back in 1648, when Louis XIV gave royal assent to the foundation of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture. Other European countries gradually followed, and eventually Britain followed suit with the Royal Academy, founded in 1768. These academies had two functions. Firstly, they sought to replace the master-apprentice system under which all artists had formerly been trained, with a formal system of instruction. Secondly, they provided exhibitions where artists could show their work. The old system where artists were patronized by great houses was dwindling, but the rising wealthy middle class were seeking art to decorate their homes and reflect their standing in society. Public exhibitions were essential for this.
The teaching methods were rigorous, and totally different from the old apprenticeship approach. You copied the Old Masters, and you had to prove your ability drawing statuary before being allowed to graduate to the Life Class. The European academies only had male models until the 19th century, but the Royal Academy employed female models from the outset. However there were four male models each week and only one female (perhaps because they paid the females twice as much as the men). Unmarried males under 20 were not admitted to the female life classes. So every artist saw, and drew, plenty of nude men. (For more about Royal Academy models read the interesting article Naked Truth.)
One of the early students in the Life Class was the painter JWM Turner, soon to become a hugely successful, and radical, figure in British art. Here is one of his life class sketches, worked up a bit to show a man in the countryside rather than the classroom. Turner was then just 15, and so forbidden to attend the female life classes.
Turner, kneeling man with hand upraised, around 1790, courtesy of the Tate Gallery, released under Creative Commons licence.
If you look closely, it is quite clear that the man is circumcised! The arrow in the detail image(below) points to the bare glans, with the coronal sulcus fully exposed.
This is quite radical, and if Turner had used this figure in one of his oil paintings for public exhibition he would doubtless have made changes, but faced with a circumcised model he took the chance to capture the bare knob. It would seem that a circumcised penis, even if not the norm, wasn't such a rarity that a man would feel uncomfortable exposing it in a life-drawing class. It is most unlikely that he was Jewish, since nudity is taboo in Judaism. It is more likely that he had served in the British East India company, where circumcision was common (see our UK page.) His muscular build suggests at least a spell as a soldier. (The male models were mostly young porters, boxers or soldiers.)
![]() | Egon Schiele (Austria) 1890-1918 From the 20th century on artists were more willing to depict their male figures as circumcised. This recent discovery, Male Nude, yellow, painted by Egon Schiele in 1910, takes the record for the earliest example from Augustus John (below). Schiele was notorious in his short lifetime for the sexually explicit nature of his pictures (which actually landed him 3 weeks in jail). This is not a self-portrait - Schiele drew nude self-portraits in which he clearly had a foreskin. Also, the roughly sketched head seems to have a flowing moustache blending into sideburns, while Schiele was clean shaven. Austria did have a large Jewish population at this time but Judaism prohibits nudity, and the facial hair suggests a gentile rather than a Jew. We do have to suspect that circumcision was much more common at this period than some historians would have us believe. ![]() ![]() Image courtesy of the online Artsy magazine. |
Augustus John (UK) 1878-1961 The British artist Augustus John made this drawing sometime around 1920. He was in America for quite a while in the early '20s, so this is probably an American boy, the son of one of his patrons. His own sons, of whom he made many drawings, were not circumcised. He was very famous in the first half of the 20th century, mainly as a portraitist. He was also notorious for his personal life - one woman at a time was never enough for him! |
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Alice Neel (USA) 1900-1984
was another who showed penises the way they were, or sometimes how she wanted them to be. Her 1933 painting Joe Gould (who she obviously thought was a bit of a prick) is shown with 3 penises, all uncircumcised, while beside him is the handsome torso of a circumcised man.
Her heirs are strict about copyright so we cannot reproduce her work here.
Paul Delvaux (Belgian) 1897-1994 Paul Delvaux was commonly called a surrealist though he wasn't happy with the label. A recurring theme in his work was a young boy or youth approaching an older woman, as in this picture, the Spitzner Museum, painted in 1943. The Spitzner Museum was a travelling exhibit of medical curiosities which Delvaux had seen 10 years previously. One booth showed real skeletons with a waxwork nude woman - which breathed! The woman's body could also be opened to reveal her internal organs. In this picture we see that the boy is quite thoroughly circumcised. Circumcision seems to have always been more commmon in Belgium than elsewhere in Europe, but it's perhaps a surprising theme when the country was under German occupation. For a larger scale detail image of just the boy and the woman click here. ![]() |
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Lucian Freud (UK) 1922-2011
Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, and thus Jewish. He fled his native Germany in 1933 and became one of Britain's nost famous artists of the 20th century. He painted people as they were, and in Britain of those days men were often circumcised. His pictures look spontaneous but in fact they took weeks to produce and he was very demanding of his sitters. He once painted out supermodel Jerry Hall's face because illness forced her to miss two sittings! Not surprisingly most of his models were friends rather than famous.
Copyright restrictions prevent us posting his paintings on Circlist but you can see a picture of his friend Leigh Bowery here. (Opens in new window/tab).
Neil Moore (Australia) born 1950 Neill Moore was born in England but his family moved to Australia in 1952. He now lives in Italy with his family, but still exhibits in Australia (and elsewhere). He worked as a cartoonist and caricaturist for various newspapers before deciding to devote himself exclusively to fine art. Fallen Icarus (1997) could maybe belong on our Quirky Circumcision page in that it depicts the tragic Cretan hero as circumcised, but it is clearly more of a modern allegory than a classical illustration. Moore painted several versions of this theme and we have a detail image from a slightly different version. From the low and dead tight circumcision the model must be Australian. Images sourced by MS ![]() | ![]() |
Helen Facenna (UK) contemporary Sunday Afternoon, by Helen Facenna (pronounced Fachenna). She doesn't give her age but does list Lucian Freud (see above) as one of her greatest influences, and that influence is obvious here. MS, who supplied the image, writes: She has executed a number of pictures of nude men, with most of the frontal views showing circumcised penises. Very unusal to find so many cut models in the UK! Does it reflect her own preference? I must say the pictures scream American influence to me and wonder if she has worked there.Well, she describes herself as working in the UK, but she does seem to be influenced by US porn! However she paints and sculpts a wide range of other subjects too. See her page in Deviant Art.
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One painting however is of special interest to the readers of Circlist: Michelsdorf (2007). While the majority of the models in Bisky's other paintings are white, this one shows a group of young men of (clearly) Arab (Muslim) descent. While in other paintings we see boys and young men clothed or shirtless, this one leaves nothing to the imagination about details of the male anatomy of a more intimate nature. Note the various reactions of the bystanders to the obviously circumcised member of the boy. More about the work by Bisky can be found on his website or for instance in the book Norbert Bisky: A Retrospective, 10 Years of Painting. Editor's note: My take on Bisky's pictures of 'ideal German youth' is that they are homo-erotic parodies of the Socialist Realism style. Remember East Germany had its first democratic elections, and opened its borders, when Bisky was 19. Reunification followed the next year. Anyway, have a look at his picture Auf der Wiese, Alarm in Baikonur and decide for yourself. |
Loribelle Spirovski (Australia) born 1990 Spirovski is an Australian artist of Filipina/Serbian/Macedonian descent. In August 2021 she won the prestigious (and financially rewarding) Manning Naked and Nude art prize with this portrait of her husband, internationally famous concert pianist Simon Tedeschi. Has any other musician of comparable stature allowed himself to be publicly shown in the nude? I cannot think of an example. Simon Tedeschi has a Jewish mother but whether he identifies as Jewish I don't know. He was born in 1981 when circumcision was still common in Australia. Congratulations to both Loribelle for her prize and Simon for being bold enough to let himself be portrayed in the nude. Image courtesy Nanda-Hobbs gallery which represents Spirovski. ![]() |
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For further images of circumcision in art go to our Quirky Circumcision page,where we explore images that are in some way unconventional. Circumcised Greek Gods? Was Adam circumcised? Explore the possibilities - all are great art.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tom, Eric, Alex, JM, Artsy magazine, the British Museum and the Tate Gallery for images and links and to the Royal Academy, the Art Gallery of NSW and Wikipedia for information.