Les hommes

By Tana Kaleya

Book by Kaleya, Tana This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517524376
• ISBN13: 9780517524374
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Harmony Books
• Length: 100 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy Forever

Polish photographer Tana Kaleya's book of 47 or so portraits with 39 in color is filled with gauzy muted photographs, many of which take on painterly qualities. The photograph of the young green-eyed man on the dust color that is repeated in the book as well is a case in point and could be a model for the character of Tadzio in Thomas Mann's brilliant novella DEATH IN VENICE. None of the models are named although there are three photographs of the dancer Nureyev as well an image-- I think-- of the actor Terrence Stamp. He is fully clothed and sitting in a cloth beach chair that we also associate with Visconti's film adaptation of Mann's novella. There are portraits as well as nudes here; some of the models appear to be very young boys while others are adults. There is an androgynous quality about some of them. Snippets of Michelangelo's sonnets are scattered throughout the book as well: For example, Then love, like youth's green sap, urges him on and all the world seems glorious and good and he is full of boyish energy. These words capture beautifully the essence of many of these romanticized photographs. It seems to me that this sort of nude photography was way ahead of its time upon its publication in the 1970's.