Ok….
Masculine Beauty in Fine Art: Then in his mid-30s, Spanish painter from Valencia, Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923) finds beauty in manliness—as do we….
For more on the artist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Sorolla
Academia del natural (1887). Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida. Oil on canvas. Spain, Valencia-Museo de Bellas Artes
(via malebeautyinart)
This has got to be the largest woman in my folder. Or else those are very tiny astronauts.
3D Alien Worlds #1 (July 1984) cover art
(via prettynaughtythings)
Pavel Ossippovich Kovalevsky (1843-1903)
Most of his paintings are documentary, so I imagine this one is as well: either a birching parlor or, more likely based on the clothes, a domestic servant being punished by the other servants.
Downton Abbey needs more of this stuff and less of Bates being a misunderstood martyr. I could watch Thomas getting whipped all day long. I might even like him afterwards…
(via continuousstateofdesire)
By all accounts Cleopatra was both seductive and a huge sadist, and used both her sexuality and her cruelty to great political effect. But this was also true of a number of male rulers in the classical era, and they don’t get the same sex-object treatment that Cleopatra gets. Ehh.
Alexandre Cabanel, Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners, 1887
(via prettynaughtythings)

This reminds me very much of a painting, I would say be C.W. Peale, but I can’t find it online so maybe I’m wrong.
ETA: Dr Psycho points out that this painting is It’s Schoenheit (Beauty) by Emil Holarek. I think it’s based on an earlier painting, though. Still poking around.
I understand why the fetish maid is being punished, but I don’t understand why the domme is wearing an inner tube and snarling.
And here is your basic 3D-painting of fetish nuns getting their symbolic kink on in a tree in such a complicated way I’m not really sure what’s going on.
Fun with filters…
(Source: from-the-deeps-and-below, via schundundschmutz)

Mirrors allow for more flexible compositions, and at the same time they place rigid demands on artists. Even photographers have to avoid showing up in the mirror (unless they’re trying to), but for painters and illustrators, drawing a mirror image correctly is a special challenge.

Le Cuir Triomphant, 1934
There were two fetish authors who both used the pseudonym Alan Mac Clyde. This is by the earlier of the two. The cover design is by Carlo, and I’ve seen it referenced as the earliest example of the modern, hard-media leather dominatrix. Though right here at the get-go, the subs are in hard-media leather fetish, too.