The Arabian Nights, aka The Thousand and One Nights, is an Arabic story collection from the Middle Ages, first translated into a European language in the 18th century.
It contains some classic tales that have become as essential to Western culture as Ulysses, the Trojan War, and Daniel in the Lion's Den: Aladdin's Lamp, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves; the Voyages of Sinbad?
So how about some paintings of a nude Aladdin or a muscular Sinbad?
I looked. I didn't find much.
An Arabian Nights Fantasy by contemporary artist Nona Hytinnen
Marc Chagall, an illustration from a 1948 Arabian Nights book. That's the story of "Abdullah the Fisherman," who catches a male mermaid.
Maxfield Parrish, the great 19th century illustrator, gives us a little beefcake with this dozing giant.
And the Classics Illustrated comic book version has a genie in a loincloth, although a bit too feminine for my tastes.
And that's it, unless ycu count fan pics of Disney's Aladdin (like this one from Nippy13 on deviantart.com).
I don't know why The Arabian Nights seems to have inspired very few male nudes.
Oh, well, back to real-life Arab men.
Now imagining Aladdin correcting you that he's Hui. LOL
ReplyDeleteThe first Magic expansion, Arabian Nights, was based on these stories. (It was later retconned as its own plane, leading to the Rabiah Scale to complement the Storm Scale.) Not as much beefcake as other sets there either. (Even in the cartoon style of early Magic art.) That said, Mijae and Ehrnam are kinda beefcakey. Both those djinn are named after men Richard Garfield knew who had recently gotten married: Their wives' names were also turned into anagrams for the efreet cycle. The other two members of the cycles (White didn't have one.) were...The black djinn and efreet were given Arabic names, and the blue ones were just called Serendib.
Now that I think about it, Mijae Djinn is the only one of the four djinn that didn't see regular play at one point or another.