Martha Mayer Erlebacher, The Path

In Erlebacher’s erotically charged picture, two men are identically posed in the manner of Michelangelo’s David, one facing the viewer, the other facing away. The artist was inspired by handbooks for artists of the Italian Renaissance that illustrated front and back views of the same pose. Erlebacher drew these figures from models of different body types, but they encounter each other as equals, each walking on the path of life. Their casual nudity and body language suggest a mythic time and space where, as the artist stated, “we are the same despite superficial differences.”