Strong imagery.

At 72, I have seen a lot of erotic pictures in my life. But this one Samson on the Treadmill was the first I can recall, and one of the most life-changing. I couldn't have been more than six or seven when I first saw a print of this Carl Bloch painting. Needless to say it stirred up feelings in me that I was far too young to understand. I  probably had already seen the 1949 film of Samson and Delilah, but Victor Mature was nowhere near as magnificent as this near-naked Samson, who remained a kind of masculine ideal. I find it amusing to think that this picture remained such a sexual icon throughout my life when one considers where I first saw it. Samson on the Treadmill was just one of the many illustrations in The Bible that was given to me, as to all children, at Boston's Ruggles Street Baptist Church.