Almost, But Not Quite Touching

Fig. 1: Detail from Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam (1508-12)

Fig. 2: Detail from Jim French's Longhorns - Dance (1969)    

 

 

I. 

 

The phrase almost, but not quite touching invariably evokes Michelangelo's iconic fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where the index fingers of God and Adam reach toward each other without quite making contact. It's an image that theologians and art critics have discussed for centuries. 

 

Many argue that it illustrates how, following the anticipated Fall of Man, there will be a spiritual rift between humanity and God the Father. Others, however, suggest that if Adam but stretch his finger he can still connect with his Creator - the choice is his (even if perfection remains unattainable).       

 

I suppose it might also be said that the space between fingers - across which many viewers imagine a divine spark leaping - serves to remind us that there are things beyond our grasp, suspended between the tangible and intangible, absence and presence.

 

 

II. 

 

The phrase almost, but not quite touching also makes me think, however, of another artwork: - one that is not so widely known or replicated, even though it rather beautifully symbolises ideas of anticipation and yearning ... 

 

The picture in question is a homoerotic illustration produced in charcoal and ink by the American artist Jim French in 1969, working under the pseudonym Rip Colt [1]. It depicts two cowboys "facing each other in side profile [...] one wearing a denim jacket, the other a leather waistcoat" [2], but naked from the waist down except for their boots and gun belts. 

 

The cowboy on the right is shown rather tenderly adjusting the other's neckerchief. It's not this detail, however, which initially catches one's eye. Rather, it's the fact that their "semi-flaccid penises, prominently on display, are close to touching" [3]. 

 

First released as part of a six-print series, the image was then reproduced in The Colt Album (1973) and issue #7 of the magazine Manpower! (1974). It gained much wider notoriety, however, when Malcolm McLaren and his partner Vivienne Westwood appropriated the design for their 'Cowboys' T-shirt - as sold in their King's Road boutique and as worn by members of the Sex Pistols [4]. 

 

 

III. 

 

While separated by centuries and vastly different cultural contexts, both images discussed here ultimately derive their power from the exact same spatial politics. 

 

Thus, whether it is the distance between the fingers of Man and God, or the erotically charged gap between two sets of male genitalia, the magic lies entirely in the fact that they are almost, but not quite touching. 

 

Reconciliation and fulfilment are withheld, and the viewer in each case is left suspended in that exquisite, agonising space of pure anticipation. 

 

It seems that in the world of art as in the world of sex, edging is a key concept used to prolong an experience and keep everyone aroused (though I believe those in the art world prefer to speak of liminality).   

  

Notes

 

[1] As well as his artwork, Jim French (1932 - 2017) is famous for establishing Colt Studio - an independent gay porn business - with his business partner Lou Thomas in 1967. His legacy of homoerotic images, spread across a wide spectrum of formats and media, is one that has shaped the cultural perception of the male body and his artwork and photography has been hailed as iconic and seminal (no pun intended). 

      If you like hypermasculine nudes - construction workers, cowboys, sailors, bikers in leather, etc. - then French is the artist for you (just as Village People will probably be your disco group of choice). 

  

[2] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 265. 

 

[3] Ibid. 

 

[4] The only addition made by McLaren and Westwood to the original image was some imaginary dialogue between the two figures. French was not particularly pleased by his illustration becoming one of the key visual provocations of the punk movement without his agreement and without his being financialy compensated. 

      For more information, see the post 'Double Exposure' (19 Jan 2025) in which I discuss this T-shirt and image (in relation to a painting by D. H. Lawrence). 

 

 

On the Inspiration of Touch

Michelangelo: Detail from Creazione di Adamo (c. 1512) 

What Tommy Dukes refers to as the inspiration of touch is an idea that continues to fascinate and intrigue. For if we must still think of the soul, then let us think of it not as some kind of immortal essence located in a mysterious region of the body, but, rather, as something that exists momentarily in the contacts formed between a body and its external environment.

In other words, the soul is a flash of interchange between objects and not an an intrinsic quality belonging to either. This is illustrated, for example, in Michelangelo's famous fresco, The Creation of Adam (c. 1512) - at least as I interpret it.

For rather than conceive of Adam as a useless lump of clay just waiting to be animated by the all-powerful index finger of God's paternal right hand, I prefer to imagine inspiration is born between the two as entities who unfold into being within a democracy of touch. Unequal as objects perhaps, but equally objects nevertheless upon a flat ontological playing field.

It's often pointed out that, as a matter of fact, the two hands don't actually touch. But that's ok. What counts is the active reaching out of fingertips and that magical space and spark created between them that we might think of as the shimmer of possibility that lies betwixt things and forever beyond the grasp of any single entity.   

And what also counts, as Steven Connor rightly indicates, is the delicacy of the shared touch; it has to have a certain lightness and softeness. People with greedy, heavy hands who believe they must grab life by the throat and tear open the flower bud are essentially soulless. Connor writes:

"Delicate and subtle things have a life of their own, and call, not for grasping or prodding or palpation, but for caress [...] for in the caress, there is an approach or address to another skin capable of sensation, capable of its own experience of the borderline between thought and feeling. To caress an object in the world is to treat it as though it possessed such a sensitive skin."

Arguably, another word for this sensuous, subtle form of touch is tenderness - a term privileged by D. H. Lawrence in his late works and elaborated into a provocative ethic that encapsulates his ideal of blissful bodily interaction that is free from any will to dominance or exploitation. One might hold the other, but, at the same time, one must hold back from holding the other too tightly. 

It is interesting to note how the French philosopher Michel Serres develops this notion of reserve in his work, suggesting that humanity - in the best sense of the word - is defined not by its power to manipulate and destroy, but by its ability to show self-restraint and recognise limits. To exceed limits and to seek to exercise control over others - to refuse either to let them go or let them be - is to fall into a fatal form of ego imperialism (à la Clifford Chatterley).      

See:

D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983).

D. H. Lawrence, The First and Second Lady Chatterley Novels, ed. Dieter Mehl, (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Steven Connor, The Book of Skin, (Cornell University Press, 2004). Lines quoted are on pp. 262-63. 

 
Michel Serres, The Troubador of Knowledge, trans. Sheila Farier Glaser and William Paulson, (University of Michigan Press, 1997). 

Michel Serres, The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies, trans. Margaret Sankey and Peter Cowley, (Continuum, 2008). 

Note: to read an afterword to this post that develops the idea of delicacy and problematises Lawrence's notions of touch and tenderness, please click here.