The Lusty Creativity of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem
The Lusty Creativity of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem
A lesser-known Dutch master with a penchant for male backsides created some of the greatest homoerotic paintings of all time.
Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem’s “The Massacre of the Innocents” (1590) at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.Credit.Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum
By Arthur Lubow
Jan. 13, 2021
I was walking through the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a few years ago when I bumped up against an enormous painting that stopped me in my tracks. Eight feet high and almost twelve feet long, “The Massacre of the Innocents,” a depiction of the slaying of male babies ordered by King Herod in Bethlehem, placed me cheek by jowl with the most provocatively positioned, beefy male posterior I had ever seen in Western art. The naked butt jutted out, forcing the viewer of the painting to gaze up at the massive glutes and thighs, much like the mother of the unfortunate infant under t