no one gets me like u do, sascha schneider

Though I've never gotten any questions or comments as to why I mostly draw and paint men, I sometimes wonder how I'd respond to that kind of question since it is an interesting one.

I remember a few years ago, my parents and I were watching a video about the artist H.R. Giger (who was a part of the visual direction for the 1979 movie Alien) and my dad had asked why people seem to focus mostly on females, because even in Giger's work, which is very aesthetically biomechanical, he still usually depicts women as his subjects, sometimes even erotically. My mom replied and said that maybe artists just find women more visually pleasing to look at, which seems to be true.

For a while, I thought that maybe that was the sole reason why I mostly painted male subjects. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't at least partially true. But I feel like if I were to say that out loud, it might get translated into some people's minds as: "I like painting men because I am horny and need to look at something nice," which would be a massive misinterpretation to why I, a bisexual attracted to both men and women, am specifically drawn to the male form in a way that the female form just doesn't do it for me artistically. 

In short, without getting too personal about shit I don't want to talk about, I think I simply see something extremely beautiful in men that most people don't see. I think the male form is so beautiful. I think of all the sculptures I admire from Western antiquity, specifically from the Greeks and the Romans depicting their Gods in their image of ideal youth and beauty, or my favourite paintings from artists like J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, and John William Waterhouse, and admire the way the all depict male beauty, from hyper-masculine to more androgynous (which I prefer.) I think of how I want to replicate that look and that feeling in my own art work, and wonder if I'll ever be as beautiful or handsome as them. I vicariously live through them, since I know it's only an ideal and one that is fleeting with age, but I don't lament over not being able to fit into said ideal.

I watched this video the other night about the artist Sascha Schneider, whose artwork you may or may not recognize as being the inspiration for that one scene in the movie The Lighthouse. I didn't know much about Sascha's past, but it resonated with me. I might be reading too much into this, and he may have been an artist who only depicted male subjects because he was "horny and needed to look at something nice," but, IDK. I watched this video, and it stuck with me. Particularly about his fascination with hypnosis and using it as a tool for introspection.

I think he and I share a similarity on that front too, but instead of hypnosis for me, it's the occult. Witchcraft, divination, deep meditation, astrology, sorcery. Anything that goes beyond the physical realm. I struggle a lot with existentialism and trying to justify my existence. As in, figure out why I'm here, alive, why I am a conscious, self-aware human being, and what's my purpose here. I don't have anything to live for, as I don't particularly care for romance, I don't want children, and I don't care for obtaining wealth outside of living relatively comfortably. I don't understand why I exist, and I don't understand what's keeping me from killing myself. 

Anyway, I transcribed a portion of the video that resonated with me the most. It is linked as well, in case anyone is reading this and wants to watch the full thing.

[excerpt from "This Mysterious Painting Was Banned In 1933. Here's "Why." by Inspiraggio]

... This focus on the male nude was one of the characteristics that made Schneider a different kind of artist, who would focus on the male nude in an overwhelmingly female-centric context.

At this time, in the early 20th century, a movement called the health and hygiene movement - Hygienism - was promoted as a state response to the poverty and poor hygiene conditions in which citizens lived. This movement advocated training the body and mind through youth exercises outdoors, preferably nude, all in the pursuit of natural health and vitality. As a result, Schneider created paintings, photographs, sculptures, and especially public murals with a homoerotic aesthetic.

Proponents claimed that only through the unabashed display of strong and beautiful male bodies could youth be freed from the harmful effects of modern life which were believed to be destroying the German ideal of masculinity. This classical aesthetic continued during the Third Reich era and formed parts of its iconography, where emerging artists like Schneider were scorned as "degenerate art."

Years later, with the disappearance of fre corpac culta(?), Schneider's work also vanished as it was closely tied to this historical interlude. The artist died in 1927 after suffering a diabetic attack during a ship voyage.

By the end of World War II, he was completely forgotten and was only brought back into the scene thanks to the efforts of German collector, Hans-Gerd Röder, who lent his extensive collection of works to the Leslie-Lohman Museum where, in 2013, the first retrospective revived Schneider from obscurity.