George Grosz Futa?
Folks with even just casual knowledge of twentieth century European art know George Grosz (1893-1959) as a brilliant and caustic political satirist.
(Found at The Reality-Based Community.) What has been less well known until very recently was that he was also a prolific eroticist, with inclinations toward the grotesque. This image which I found in Hans-Jürgen Döpp’s The Erotic Museum in Berlin seems to anticipate futanari.
Döpp dates this watercolor to circa 1940, obviously too early in history for Grosz to have access to manga. The Wikipedia article on futanari suggests that within Japan itself there are artistic representations that anticipate futanari, and of course there are artistic representations of hermaphrodites in European art that go all the way back to Ovid’s recounting of the myth of Salmacis (and likely further). Grosz would almost certainly have known of the latter, and possibly of the former as well.
Though looking at this arresting image I am inclined to wonder whether Grosz came up with it through cultural transmission much at all. Maybe there are just certain ideas that inevitably boil up out of human consciousness, and this is one of them…
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Even though I do believe that I have more that a “casual knowledge of twentieth century European art” I had no knowledge of Grosz as a “political satirist”, but I’ve known his characteristic style of erotica (http://www.all-....html) since forever!
I do believe that it is very accurate to say that “there are just certain ideas that inevitably boil up out of human consciousness”. Just think of pyramids in egypt and mexico, and that is just something as trivial pyramids. When it comes to sex …
It’s curious — and intriguing — to hear from someone who’s had the opposite experience from mine. To me it feels like I’ve been looking at Grosz’s political cartoons since forever but only fairly recently have I seen much of his erotica. So thanks for commenting!
Tried to retrace my steps to see if I could remember where I first saw the works of Grosz. Even though I don’t recall that, I do remember seeing his work in several books on erotic art.
Among the books I have is P. & E. Kronhausen’s The Complete Book of Erotic Art 1-2 (several reprints from 1970 and forward, I probably got mine in the late eighties). Grosz is actually one of the best represented artists in Kronhausen’s book. In a book mostly in B/W he gets a complete color section (8 pages) for himself in addition to some B/W prints also.
Even though you have discovered Grosz’s erotica through his political cartoons, one can hardly say that his erotica has been hidden from public view until now. :D
I never really liked his erotica, there’s something unnerving about his chubby females in too vivid color, but still I must admit that it is Grosz’s work I remember best from the hundreds of images in Kronhausen’s book. For that reason alone his word qualifies as art, doesn’t it?
With Dr Peter Koopman of the university of Queensland estimating that 4% of all live births are Intersex it’s hardly surprising that multiple cultures had eroticised idealised representations like this dating back a fair while.
And thats without considering the 1 in 500 people who are transsexual and the 2%-20% who are Transgender to some degree such as crossdressers and genderqueers etc.
Whats more surprising is that there was not much more of it! From Boy George to (recently censored) Andrej Prejic to cheaply made ‘shemale’ porn and street sex workers there seems to be quite a large chunk of humanity (both male and female, gay lesbian bi and straight) sexually attracted to it.
Certainly at the time i came out as Trans i went from getting only a little interest from potential partners to two offers of threesomes!