Love Among the Schoolboys 1865 Simeon Solomon The old-fashioned outfits worn by the boys in this drawing connect the subject to the elite British secondary school Eton College. Solomon was close friends with Oscar Browning, a reforming educator and assistant master at the school who sought to overturn long established cruel traditions and his ideas likely inspired this image. The winged figure of Love has appeared in a schoolroom and preaches to boys of different ages. In response, some are transfixed, some embrace their fellows, and one reacts with suspicion. Around this date Solomon devoted a series of line drawings to the Greek philosophical idea that the greatest human intimacy was possible only between persons of the same sex. Repressive Victorian social mores and legal penalities meant that the artist had to express his homosexuality in veiled ways.. Love Among the Schoolboys. Simeon Solomon (British, London 1840-1905 London). 1865. Pen and ink over traces of graphite. Drawings