The Beefcake Art of Annibale Carracci

Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) was a painter of the Italian Baroque period who specialized in mythological and allegorical subjects, obviously preferring the male form to the female.  He painted big, beefy, muscular nudes influenced by Raphael and Michelangelo.

Genio de la Gloria (1588-89), or "The Spirit of Glory," is a brightly-shining nude angel with a rather small penis getting ready to pass out laurels.

Bacchus (1590), the Greek god of wine, drunkenness, and general licentiousness, is usually portrayed as an elderly roue, but Carracci makes him a chubby adolescent.

The Choice of Hercules (1596) shows a naked, very handsome demigod trying to choose between two fully clothed women, representing Virtue (left) and Vice (right).  There are more naked men on Virtue's side.

Diana and Endymion (1597) is part of a gigantic fresco called The Loves of the Gods, now in the Farnese Gallery in Rome.  Endymion is semi-nude and surrounded by four nude men, while Diana, who put him to sleep so she have him all to herself, is minimized.

The same fresco contains Perseus and Phineas.  A naked Perseus is using Medusa's head to turn a lot of naked men to stone.














And Polyphemus Furioso (Polyphemus Insane).  I'll bet you've never seen the Cyclops who Odysseus outwits so buffed before.

Although his penis is still a bit inadequate.