EDINBURGH.- The evolution of men’s fashion, masculine identity and the male self-image over the last 500 years is the subject of a provocative and engrossing new exhibition which opened at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh this summer.

While many investigations into the themes of beauty, image and fashion have focussed on women, Looking Good: The Male Gaze from Van Dyck to Lucian Freud explores the ways in which men have, to an equal degree, indulged their enthusiasm for fashionable clothes, careful grooming and elaborate hair styling, and in doing so, have projected seductive and impressive images of themselves to the world.

Looking Good features portraits of ‘stylish’ men – from elaborately attired courtiers of the 16th- and 17th centuries to icons of our own image-saturated and celebrity-obsessed age, such as David Beckham and Tinie Tempah – whose carefully composed appearance offers powerful insights into shifting attitudes to status, wealth, sexuality, masculinity and beauty.

The exhibition brings together 28 works from the collections of the SNPG and the National Portrait Gallery in London (NPGL), and has been inspired by a masterful self-portrait by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), which was acquired by the NPGL in 2014, following a major public appeal, supported by Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund, who have also funded this nationwide tour of the portrait.

In addition to paintings, drawings, photographs, miniatures and sculpture by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-89), Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547-1619) and Jonathan Owen (b.1973) the show features an exclusive, specially commissioned video and soundscape by the Edinburgh-based, award-winning band Young Fathers. The genre-defying trio, who blend hip-hop, electronica, African music, pop and much more won the Mercury Prize in 2014 with their album Dead and followed it up with the highly acclaimed White Men Are Black Men Too in 2015. Their thoughtful and socially engaged music has often dealt with changing perceptions of masculinity - contemplating what it means to be a man today - and they have explored the topic further in response to the issues raised by Looking Good.

Among the significant themes addressed in Looking Good are the ways in which clothing and grooming have always been important signifiers of beliefs, gender and status, providing a vehicle for men to express their identity. Although these have been, at times, codified in instruction manuals (notably in the 16th and 17th centuries), history has shown them to be highly fluid and changeable. Not only clothes but also hair styles and different forms of facial hair have reflected a huge range of cultural and religious traditions and social trends; beards and moustaches have variously symbolised maturity, virility, wisdom, strength and sexual prowess, and on other occasions been understood to reflect a savage, uncivilised, or even dangerous nature.

One of the most remarkable paintings in the exhibition is a self-portrait by the exceptionally skilful amateur painter Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585-1627), which shows him wearing an immaculately groomed, pointed beard and horizontal moustache, a fine satin doublet with slashes and gold braiding, and an exquisite falling ruff made of needlepoint lace. Bacon’s painting is part of a significant selection of self-portraits in Looking Good, which demonstrate how the ‘look’ that artists project to the world in portraits can be manipulated even more carefully (and tellingly) when they choose to represent themselves.

Van Dyck’s magnificent self-portrait, which is the centrepiece of the exhibition, presents the artist not as a master of his trade but as an elegant gentleman, stylishly dressed in the latest fashions favoured by the court of Charles I, whose own image the artist had done so much, as the King’s appointed painter, to promote. In contrast, Lucian Freud’s less obviously flattering self-portrait, painted in 1963, is wholly concerned with the process of painting - the artist’s craft - and the physicality of the paint, which is applied so fluidly that it seems to take on the quality of flesh itself. Freud (1922-2011), who is celebrated for his acutely observed, uncompromising portraits, frequently depicted himself; his penetrating gaze, even when directed in the mirror, has a directness that is almost macho in its intensity.

An increasingly complex understanding of masculinity, which has emerged in the last 50 years, is also explored in Looking Good, though the exhibition demonstrates that there have always been challenges to a fixed and rigid definition of the concept. Highlights here include a striking image of artist Grayson Perry in the guise of his transvestite alter-ego Claire, Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrait of the rockabilly musician ‘Smutty’ Smith (1980) and a powerful image of the athlete Linford Christie (1996). The final sections of the show look at the rise of male icons such as Mick Jagger (shown here in a 1967 portrait by Cecil Beaton), Gerard Butler (2009), and David Beckham (1998), whose image has achieved the status of a brand.

Christopher Baker, Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, commented: “This thought-provoking exhibition uses outstanding portraits from Edinburgh and London to explore fascinating issues about male image and identity that were as relevant in the seventeenth century as they are today. Built around the magnificent Van Dyck Self-Portrait, which is such an assured demonstration of painterly skill and confidence, it will inspire debate and encourage the viewing of familiar images in a new light. We are especially grateful to Young Fathers for their mesmeric and engaging response to the themes of the exhibition.”