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Title: Adonis: Masterpieces of Erotic Male Photography
ISBN: 1560252200
Author:
Michelle Olley
Michelle Olley
Publicate Date: 1999-10-26
Publish: 1999-10-26
List Price: $29.95
Average Customer Rating: 3.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $81.13
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $12.99
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1: Not much erotica
The books contains about 196 pictures. Of those, about 35 contain full frontal nudity.
A few of the models look good but the title of the book is really misleading. If you want to look at an Adonis in a book then you must buy a book, but not this one!
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2: Filtered Masterpieces
For information, the back cover text is illegible as a scan of fine lettering on black and reads, "ADONIS is a stunning collection of nearly 200 of the best erotic photographs of the male form, in both black and white and color, featuring the work of some of the world's seminal fashion, portrait and erotic photographers. Photographers whose work appears as part of this important collection include Horst P. Horst, Nan Goldin, Greg Gorman, Doris Kloster, Rob Lang, Mark Morrisroe, Richard Phibbs, Pierre et Gilles, Herb Ritts, Wolfgang Tillmans, Andy Warhol, Trevor Watson." Among the name-dropping, I liked only certain selections by et Gilles and Phibbs. Among 223 pages, 49 photographers are covered at a few pages each. The content begins on page 20, so there are 204 plates; however, only about 25 feature frontal nudity. I purposely do not say FULL frontal nudity because, of the 25, about 15, or 3/5, are what I would call torso shots (faceless or face not discernible). Overall, too many behinds are featured and too few fronts, as the author seems to have mainly selected works in which the subjects are twisted every which way to hide or obscure their private parts. Having seen other and, in my opinion, better works by some of the photographers, I must conclude that the author prefers back rather than front views and prefers mystery in frontals. For example, the few by Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden are more like the worst rather than "stunning" or "important." Too bad, as von Gloeden, I think, came closest to the Adonis ideal, using classical Greek or Greco-Roman settings (Taormina: Wilhelm Von Gloeden, for example) and romanesque, Italian models. Letting the buyer beware, this fits a general trend that some women (I presume that the author is female) may be overly concerned with buns. Although I just received the book, I am going to sell my copy.
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3: Masterpieces? Erotic? I think not
This book was highly anticipated as I was looking forward to viewing artful photography featuring unclothed men. What I realized once I got to the end was that I felt extremely cheated, disappointed, what have you. The poses were nothing special, the men were primarily young to very young looking, fit and/or athletic. How does this qualify for masterpiece status? And as for the "erotic" promise of the title, I just didn't see it. Pretty boys, attractive men, a couple crossdressers, none of whom were remarkable or even memorable. There was no exhibition of energy, no emotion, no anything. I swear if I had a fancy camera I could do better! I'll admit that there were a few that captured my eye, but for a volume containing about 200 images, this book falls way short of its Greek namesake.
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4: The Beauty of Male
I was also breathless as I looked through the pages of men. They were incredibly beautiful. My favorite picture is of the two men in bed together, naked. There is a tenderness to their picture that is absolutely beautiful. This book is a wonderful celebration of the male form.
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5: Gay photographer
While a substantial amount of the collections represented in this book are stunning, there are still quite a few photographers' subjects which are a little "under" ordinary, but perhaps that was their point. Since this is a collection of photographers, an obvious few are missing like Tom Bianchi, Robert Mapplethorpe (although the editor's review says he is represented), Jim French and Bruce Weber. Obtaining rights to these prolific and world-renowned photographers' work may have been difficult, however.
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