Off the top of my head, I think this is recent too. Picasso? Dali? Femininity did not form part of their image.
I think the artist = gay thing may be an enduring cultural memory of Oscar Wilde. (?)
--- On Tue, 2/24/09, Philip Pilkington <pilkingtonphil at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I was talking about the idea that artists were often
> considered "effeminate"
> thinkers and that this could have had an impact on certain
> terms to
> designate so-called "queers". This persists
> today.
>
> "How dare you think in abstract terms, its simply not
> applicable, you
> degenerate, you pansy....".
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