The Art of Homoeros - 3

 A young man, is alone in a bare, dungeon-like room, lit only by a distant window. 

He is naked and clamped with fetters to an 'X'-shaped frame of some complexity,

it looks purposefully designed for specific - and repeated - use. 

The angled spreadeagled position traps him with his own body weight.

 He can move his head but it's unsupported and his neck muscles are protesting,

He can flex his limbs but not enough to pull them from their metal restraints, 

 He can move at the waist but that only reminds him of his naked vulnerability there 

He's always been proud of his muscular body, a product of much hard work in the gym.

He's enjoyed the admiration and envy it has earned him from others,
 but this involuntary exhibition embarrasses and frightens him.

His head turns as he hears someone at the door and he trembles.

This atmospheric piece leaves much unsaid for the viewer to imagine

but the helpless plight of this magnificent young Adonis is stimulation aplenty!

The artist's sense of colour contributes makes a beautiful picture of an erotic piece.
The sunny window invokes a world outside where life goes on, uncaring.
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 This slender boy finds himself in the most bizarre of entrapments. In the urban waste of an abandoned concrete building or car park, a classical pillar has been erected. Stripped of his modern day clothing and chained to it, 219 suddenly seems to be in danger of suffering the terrible fate of a thousand rebellious slaves. In Homoeros' hands this pose produces a long slender body which for all it's muscularity seems most vulnerable.

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This is an imaginative form of bondage which seems to have evolved from those knife-throwing circus acts. Quaintance was using it back in the 50's for an exotic (and decidedly bloodthirsty) Mayan Sacrifice scene. The circular panel to which poor Elijah is bolted doesn't appear to have been damaged by knife blades or sullied by blood yet but there's always a first time I suppose. Of course we can't see what he can see and his terrified look is probably not just the product of a vivid imagination. The bare stone walls and simple items on the table in the foreground imply a medieval or Inquisition setting but the bondage platform looks quite modern suggesting a re-enactment of those times, which is hardly comforting for Elijah!
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 You want helpless? It's hard to imagine any method of restraint more devastating to the captive than this. Suspended high above the ground in the middle of a bare room, he is totally exposed and even if he manages to wriggle out of the restraints faces a scary drop to the floor. The chains attached to his limbs seem to be threatening to pull him apart and his muscular strength avails him nothing when there's nothing to lever it against. His face shows his dismay and confusion, it as though he's demanding to know 'Why?'
Just look in the mirror Riccardo.

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 The view from behind is even better, it gives us the sense of covertly observing the prisoner as he is left to struggle with the discomfort of the restraint and his own bewilderment. This is just a reversal of the previous image (a benefit of using render software) but the lowered head in this view gives a sense of resignation - and a view of beautiful buns!

 This image of a shackled man lying in a shallow stone bath isn't one of the best but if it's implying what I think it is - a pissy punishment in the offing - then it's an unusual subject in this artist's output and I include it for that reason. The captive's curly blond locks seeme most appropriate to the antique setting, and in this context the horror on his face might signify an even worse cruelty is facing him, but as ever the artist gives no explanation. Notice how he's flipped the colour palette to invoke a Mediterranean light and tanned body, all perfectly toned with the chains

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There are no such doubts about the direction of travel here, the captive is being racked for his religious non-conformance. The cross held aloft above him adds insult to injury. Traditionally victims of the inquisition are depicted in non-flattering ways with liberal doses of scraggy hair and tattered clothing but this one is a real hunk, one of the artist's more adult-looking models. The artist's interest in stretched torsos seems to have found a natural subject here.

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All the examples shown above show spreading or stretching forms of bondage, but Homoeros usually seems to initiate his men in more traditional ways and these proliferate in his catalogue. He seems to propel his men gradually into bondage situations. If you look at his model picture groups, the beefcake poses he starts out  with are innocent enough but before long a 'hands behind the back' pose appears, casting the man as a potential captive/slave. Sometimes he places them in front of a post and before long, if he favours them, their hands become tied, and then secured to the it.

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 For me these simplest of bondage situations are often the most erotic. This man's arms are tied back tightly behind his back accentuating his nudity. Although his bodily proportions are highly exaggerated, that seems to accentuate the severity of his restraint. We don't know if he has been captured here - a hiker who's lost his way and found a new one - or he might have been brought here for punishment. Either way you can see in his lowered eyes that he knows he has become another man's prize. The barren, stony landscape behind him, almost biblical in it's bleakness, is symbolic of his predicament.

 This is another of Homoeros' early pictures and it has a similar striking simplicity that reaches to the very heart of a bondage enthusiast's leanings. The captive has been stripped and left tied to a post, a position that proclaims his nudity. At this point it seems that, having established that he cannot free his hands or dislodge the upright to escape, he is now pausing to survey his surroundings and assess his predicament. 

This method of restraint, fixing the captive in a specific place and effectively putting him on display has literary/historical associations with primitive cultures, rituals and even sacrifice. The title tells us he's a hostage. These are usually used to extort money or to ward off would-be attackers. The latter scenario looks more probable here but either way he knows his life is in danger.

It's hard to tell if the amorphous green mass that surrounds him is land vegetation or algae floating on swampy water, but he's staring at it as though he's expecting something to emerge from it. A being that needs to be appeased perhaps. A rescuer even! I can't explain the point of light, which seems to have been placed deliberately in an erotically suggestive position, perhaps implying a more fantastical or magical explanation of the scene.

Next time I explore Homoeros' punishment art

Homoeros Gallery at Deviant Art is presently configured as one giant, continuous page and the sheer volume of images there makes it very difficult to access older parts of the archive. If you want to explore the other pictures in the series I have showcased here, try using Deviant Art Search with the reference number I have quoted in the picture captions (or the title if it doesn't have a ref number). In some cases you may have to use the full title including '_' symbols to find the image but should then be able to access connected images by changing the number. You can also narrow the field of search using the tags attached to each picture.