Years ago while shooting photos at Golden Gate Park’s conservatory in San Francisco I stumbled upon a show at the de Young Museum featuring the work of various French Impressionists, work that was on loan via a travelling show. Not being much of a fan of art, I must have been either extremely bored or stoned that day. Possibly both. In any case I coughed up the outrageous entrance fee, wandered in, and was immediately blown away.

My folks were born and raised in the mid-west. That’s not to say people from that area of the country lack culture, but crops played a much more important role on their life. So art was not something we were exposed to as kids. Other than Walt Disney’s. I assume at sometime during my education, possibly on several occasions, there must have been some attempt made at instilling an appreciation for art in my classmates and I at school, but it didn’t stick. Pictures of great paintings are all fine and well but they just don’t impart the same feelings as seeing the original piece in person. The image is captured, the sense of wonderment is not.

I can’t say Monet’s work did much for me that day. And while I appreciated the vividly bold usee of color in some of Gauguin ’s work, it looked a bit too reminiscent of the stuff I finger-painted back in the first grade. In my defense, I have come to appreciate their work more since. I think, however, there has to be some personal connection to the subject of a painting to spark that initial understanding of why a master is considered a master. A great painting has to speak to you before you recognize its greatness. And being both bored and stoned that day Degas’ L’Absinthe did that for me.

I found a large print of that painting and hung it on the wall in my living room. Which I’m sure raised a few eyebrows since blacklight posters of Jimi Hendrix, oil on velvet renderings of Elvis, and the ever popular dogs playing poker were all the rage in those days. Later, after my love affair with Polynesia – and Asian and Polynesian men – began, Gauguin became a favorite of mine and I finally grasped the importance of his often childish looking work; despite how one-dimensional some of his paintings were he managed to capture the beauty and essence of life in the tropics. I guess that’s why it’s called impressionism. Duh.

But back at the museum it was the realism and the incredible use of light in some of the artist’s work that impressed me. Rather than Gauguin’s lack of dimension, the painters’ ability to render a three dimensional scene on a flat canvas, and to bring those scenes to life, is what hit me. Even when the subject matter didn’t. Gustave Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs de parquet) is not one of the more famous impressionist paintings (nor is he one of the more famous impressionist painters) but I can still vividly picture that piece in my mind. And, okay, it is of shirtless laborers. To be honest though, I doubt that I would have lasted long enough to discover Caillebotte’s work if I hadn’t seen L’Absinthe first.

I think art teacher in the lower grades would do better to find paintings that speak to their students first, and then attempt to hammer home what they consider important, brush work etc., later instead of the other way around. It works the same way with literature. Romeo and Juliet is not still popular with teenagers today because of Shakespeare’s mastery of the written word. It starts with the story. When the subject matter hits home, appreciation of how that story is told – whether by word or paint – will follow. Which is a long way around to getting to today’s eye candy post. But if there is one subject that speaks to gay men, it’s penis.

Lin Jinfu is a Chinese painter. Since my computer doesn’t speak Cantonese, I can’t really tell you much more about him. (Google probably can, but you’ll have to take that path of discovery yourself.) I found his work, or at least those of naked Asian men, at this link, and then followed through clicking my little heart out. I’m not sure why that turned into a post about my introduction to the impressionist painters. But then following a different link I found on his home page took me to a different presentation of his work that also covered his shows, his life, and – I’m assuming – some of the masters who influenced him.

It probably would have been too much to ask for L’Absinthe to have been pictured in that section, but there are paintings by several of the French Impressionists, as well as one by Monet that had been used for the posters announcing that exhibition I attended in San Francisco many years ago. So that journey down memory lane was gonna happen regardless. The artist probably would appreciate that even though it was penis that originally captured my attention, his work immediately reminded me of the master impressionists’. Though considering the subject mater it was either gonna be that or the work of another master in his own field, ChiChi LaRue.

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