When men were men, and, at least in art, so were the women. When painting was painting - you paint what you see, with clean lines and strong colors. What they really love is the medieval era, or at least the idea of it.
These artists loathe Impressionism and nearly every other trend in popular art going back to the late Renaissance, when Raphael launched a thousand fleshy cupids into the clouds. Except in his art.īy the time Solomon is finished at the Royal Academy, he has befriended his heroes: a very small, very influential group of older artists who call themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
When Solomon finishes his art education, at 18, this is the reality: There is no place in Victorian society for a man like him. As Smith’s hands are being bound together, the easier to pray to God, Pratt cries out: “Oh God, this is horrible, this is indeed horrible.” They are in their early 30s, yet they are so weak and heartbroken by the day of their execution that the executioners have to carry them from their cell. The last two men to be sentenced to death for sodomy in England - James Pratt and John Smith-are brought to the gallows in 1835, just five years before Solomon is born. The law makes gay sex punishable by death, and it stays on the books, with some fits and starts, until 1828 - when it’s replaced by a law that still makes gay sex a death sentence. To understand the world that Simeon Solomon is coming of age in, let’s go back once again, this time to 1533, when the Parliament of England passes the Buggery Act. He draws Jonathan and David, over and over. And when he eventually goes on to study at the Royal Academy, at age 15, he latches onto their story as a way to explore this kind of love within the very acceptable bounds of the Bible. Simeon is well aware of the story of Jonathan and David. And now, here’s Simeon, already starting art school himself and incredibly precocious and hitting puberty. His sister Rebecca is an artist and so is his brother Abraham. His father is one of the first Jews to be granted the freedom of the city, after centuries of oppression. Simeon Solomon is 11 or 12 years old, the youngest of eight children in a prominent Jewish family in the East End of London. The Jewish tradition says no, this was real love.Īnd so, jump forward to 1852. The Christian tradition says eh, they were just good pals. David, when he eventually becomes King David, honors Jonathan’s memory by seating Jonathan’s son at his royal table-instead of honoring tradition and killing him, along with the rest of Saul’s family. They become a thing, kissing and crying together at one point, until Jonathan dies in battle. And right then and there, according to the Book of Samuel in the Bible, “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.” King Saul’s son, Jonathan, is standing beside his father, checking out this heroic shepherd boy. As if to say, “Look, I just saved the Jewish people with my slingshot. He’s holding the giant’s severed head before King Saul, the king of Israel. David, a shepherd boy in Israel, has just killed the giant Philistine warrior Goliath. Let’s jump back to the year 1000 BCE, a thousand years before Jesus of Nazareth comes along. Solomon and Roberts are charged with attempting to commit a crime that until just a decade before had been punishable by death, an act listed on the books as “the abominable crime of buggery.” They are stripped and examined by a doctor, who probes their rectums and genitals until he has seen enough. The two men are taken to the police station, just around the corner. He is arrested along with a 60-year-old man named George Roberts, who spends his days as a stableman, cleaning up after horses. on a cold night in the West End of London, Solomon is arrested in a public restroom. He is an artist, a former child prodigy who has exhibited his paintings at the highest level for almost half his life, starting when he was just 18.Īnd now, at 7:10 p.m.
He has the slight, sly smile of someone about to say something totally inappropriate. He’s handsome, with dark red curly hair and a short wispy beard - like Bob Dylan in the late 1960s or Pan, the mischievous god. On the night of February 11, 1873, Simeon Solomon is arrested. (An audio version of this story can be heard in season 2 of Mia’s The Object podcast, as Unspeakable Love: The Rebel Who Went Too Far.) The first gay art star supposedly succumbed to scandal-the truth is more complicated June 4, 2021