Alexandre's "Three Men In Short Pants"
PHOTOGRAPHY AND HOMOSOCIALITY
Before the obsession with the athletic body in the 1930s and ‘40s became heavily associated with Nazism and Fascist ideology, the nude male body enjoyed freedom in the arts and was often represented through different media. An example of this is the picture Three Men in Short Pants by Belgian-French photographer Alexandre (1855-1925). As indicated by the work’s title, the image depicts three men standing with their feet in a river that rises above their ankles. They stand at a moderate distance from the camera and invite reflection on the relationship between man and nature, as well as between photography and painting in the 19th century.
One of the three young men at the center of the picture appears motionless. His eyes are closed, and his mouth is slightly ajar, his features are blurred by motion, lending the scene an air of spontaneity. On either side he is supported by two other male figures. At first, the image seems to be the witness of a rescue operation of a drowning man, and they are closed in by the overwhelming scale of the open area. Death by drowning was extremely frequent at this time since people’s swimming abilities were quite poor. However, Alexandre, known for his mastery of staging, seems to deliberately play with the conventions of the snapshot while directing the protagonists to enact the scene, following the pictorialist’s appreciation for staged photography.
He seems to draw even more from the pictorialist tradition in the way of appealing to known painterly motifs by re-enacting them before the lens. The tragic nature of this outdoor scene here, seems to evoke the Christian iconographic motif of the Pietà, in which Mary cradles and laments the dead body of Christ. When compared to Michelangelo’s renowned Pietà, clear similarities emerge. The central figure in Alexandre’s work appears lifeless, his limbs and head hang loosely, while the two men provide both physical and emotional solace, much like Mary. By evoking this deeply emotional theme, Alexandre connects his work to a timeless, universal narrative. In this religious reading, the core of the picture seems to emphasise the expression of its values more than the precise way of the depiction.
A new dynamic emerges through the presence of the male models, who embody both care and sensitivity. This evokes the term “homosociality”, which refers to the formation of intimate platonic bonds in an all-male circle (Dekeukeleire, 2021). During the fin de siècle the male nude was omnipresent as studying from life had long been a cornerstone of academic artistic education. However, these depictions were not necessarily perceived through the lens of same-sex desire. Men often posed fully naked, oftentimes echoing, or directly recreating poses of classical Greek sculptures. In this context, photography became a crucial tool to capture these studies, providing the artists with reference images for future works without openly manifesting a form of homoeroticism.
The presence of swim shorts adds some modesty, which is also seen in his other photograph Three Men in Underwear. It becomes clear that photography in these cases was not merely used as a tool for artists but instead these pictures function as a fully realised genre scene in their own right. It belongs to a visual culture that celebrates the male body and its associated values. One could even argue that it played a role in bringing the male nude to the forefront, and perhaps contributed to the new photographic genre representing the importance of physical culture that eventually ended up shaping new notions of masculinity.
