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Erotic helplessness : a study of the history of the Damsel in Distress theme in art

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mysterybadger said:
As a resident of this green and pleasant land I still find Matania's illustrations astonishing in a household magazine featuring articles on weight loss and golf and buying a dog. Not just the nudity but the strong undercurrent of sexual sadism. We never had anything like that in the swinging sixties or even the sordid seventies. We had to make do with the lingerie section in the Freemans catalogue

I do however remember a particularly powerful BBC Schools film about Boadicea that featured lots of Roman maidens being slaughtered on the steps of the temple in Colchester (a spot I have stood on). Turned me right round.
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Yes Matania is indeed something else... It kind of makes one wonder what all those pulps would have looked like in the nude, without the Puritan censors... Do you happen to know the name of that Boadicea film ?
I admire the meticulous order of your collection, @mysterybadger... Mine is all mixed up... Takes forever to find an image...
 
Changing subject here, but I came across this 5th century relief of a naked Thecla presented to the wild beasts... I'm astonished that the Acts of Paul and Thecla has not inspired more artists, especially when compared to Quo Vadis.... There is no lack of arena action or distraught chastity...
 

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coldturkey said:
Changing subject here, but I came across this 5th century relief of a naked Thecla presented to the wild beasts... I'm astonished that the Acts of Paul and Thecla has not inspired more artists, especially when compared to Quo Vadis.... There is no lack of arena action or distraught chastity...
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This is what I have in my archives concerning Thecla.
#1 is by Jacques Callot.
#2 and 3: unknown artists.
#4: found on the site of BNF (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).

thecla.jpgThecla_1.jpgThecla_2.jpgthecla_bnf.jpg
 
coldturkey said:
Yes Matania is indeed something else... It kind of makes one wonder what all those pulps would have looked like in the nude, without the Puritan censors... Do you happen to know the name of that Boadicea film ?
I admire the meticulous order of your collection, @mysterybadger... Mine is all mixed up... Takes forever to find an image...
Click to expand...
No I don't sadly...and trust me it's not for want of trying. What with that and Up Pompeii, Carry On Cleo and I Claudius the 70s were a great time for us classicists.
I'm only putting up the stuff that's not a mess...I'll add some of the randoms in due course.
 
gerembeau said:
Mine better than the original -:)
Nice and technically find.
Wonder when it was made ? Where ? Who ?
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No idea but it has a handcrafted look to it.
This sort of project is now absurdly easy with AI. This took me about five minutes just now...

lady jane grey..jpg

Whereas this took me a long, long time back in the bad old days of 2020...
JANE GREY PLUS TWO.png

(Bit of a Jane Grey fan, in case you hadn't guessed...)
 
Pausanias, regent of Sparta and victor over the Persians at Platea turns traitor and flees to Byzantium.
Here he becomes enamoured of the beautiful Cleonice and has her brought to his room (as you do). Out of respect for the virgin's modesty (!) the guards put out the lamps and as she stumbles around in the dark Pausanias mistakes her for an assassin and stabs her to death (Jacques Louis David, Bartholomew Pinelli).

Jacques_Louis_David_-_The_Death_of_Cleonice_(oil_on_canvas_mounted_on_wood)The_-_(MeisterDruck...jpgcleonice-FN24785.jpg


More than a little miffed at this turn of events Cleonice decides to haunt Pausanius...
cleonice S-FN24788.jpg

...and as the price for leaving him in peace demands that he returns to Sparta. There Pausanius takes refuge in the temple of Athena Unwilling to kill a man on sacred ground the Spartans brick him up in the temple where he starves to death.
The moral of this story: it's the shags you miss out on that will haunt you for the rest of your life.
 
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