Dreams of a butterfly

"Dear Butterfly,

From the place where I am now, I have a high speed internet access, it is a huge step for me, and I enjoy very much browsing the web, in order to check if my photographic art is still reminded, loved and known, in your XXIst century world. 

Among many web sites or groups or blogs, I noticed your "Rêves Siciliens" site, and as far I can see, it seems you know quite well Taormina and my photographic production, my aesthetic choices, and my favorite models....

I just want to thank you for keeping my vision and my dream alive and up to date, for adding words to what I tried to display through my photographic camera.

I think you understand so well that between photography and painting the border is very tiny, that between my Taormina models and their European viewers, there is such an alchemy of desire that what is felt and dreamt is more important than what is actually seen...

I would like to thank you warmly for your hard work, and also to ask you a basic question... Why a butterfly at the beginning of the XXIst century is so concerned by the photographic art, the aesthetic universe of Wilhem von Gloeden, a German photographer who was active in Taormina in the late XIXth c, in the early XXth c. ?

Yours, as always,

Wilhelm von Gloeden

"Dear Wilhelm,

Thanks so much for your email. I am so happy some Internet service providers made possible the communication between the past and the present times, between the dead ones and those who are still alive (for how long ?).

I am just a butterfly, I do not intend to live for a long time, I am just happy if I fly around, if I inspire dreams of beauty, if I inspire music or poetry...

I felt in love with your universe, dear Wilhem... I love these old photographs, some of them are albuminate, other ones are argentic ones, some of them have your stamp on the verso, or the date of the print, and sometimes you even signed the photograph on its recto...

I felt in love with Taormina, this Sicilian village above the sea, telling so many stories, from its ancient Greek past... I felt in love with the library of Tauromenium, a part of its catalogue was discovered by modern archaeologists. I felt in love with the Taormina's Greek theater, where the audience was in front of the stage and of the Aetna mountain... These very old stones are still singing the verses of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, I can even hear echoes of comic poets, is it Aristophanes or Menander ?

I also felt in love with your models and their photographs, dear Wilhelm... This kind of love did have a name in your time... Uranist love, pederasty, perhaps... Homosexuality ? Today, the key-words would be "gay" or even "queer"...

Your visual universe depicts and expresses something I did not find in the gay web and blogs. we have so many sites to browse, so many photos albums, so many videos. They do not bring me the fulfillement I feel while looking at your photographs, either in my own collection or in other museums, art galleries or web sites...

Looking at your photographs make me aware of what desire, of what my desire are about... A gaze, a shape, the curves of a body, a way to undress, a face expression, a young male body, lips half open, the way a late teen boys shows and hides at the same times, this is what makes me dream...

Desire and dream are very strange feelings. Why do I feel them, why did my feelings chose such or such model...?

Looking at your vintage photographs, my dear Wilhelm, I feel that some of your cute models can still listen to my voice, to the way I am looking to them... They were at the top of their blossoming age when you chose to photograph them... They are young for ever, they are the ideal of youth, and they were loved as such by all the travelers who came to Taormina and visited you.

What I love so much in your photographic art is its intemporal part... Your lads could be from 1st century BC, they could from late XIXc. AD, and they actually are from XIXc AD... But hey are so actual to me, at the beginning of XXI c. Yes, I felt in love with boys I will never meet, because they are just in a cimetary now... These boys made my dream and desire, they inspired me so many feelings, well, love was the main of them...

I can't explain why... I feel I could look for ever into the eyes of some of your models, into their souls, or just experiencing their whole body as a map to look upon, to caress, to feel close to mine... And I am dreaming about the words, the breathe we could share...

Each of your photographs, my dear Wilhelm, is just as a potential love story. Desire, sensuality and the feeling that such a boy is the one I could spend my life with, listening to his beauty, to his own language, to his pains and his joices...

Most of the boys I am in love with today are dead since a long time... But I love them anyway, because I feel so much my love for them, because I feel what their youth and their beauty expressed and express still today...

My dear Wilhelm, they are so many ways to love, so many cute lads to fall in love with...

Falling in love with a photograph is just loving a concept, a shade, a reflection...

A boy's gaze, or smile, or posture are just a concept, a share and a reflection....

My dear Wilhelm, what makes me dream and desire so much about your photographic work is just that:

young men to fall in love with. A young man could be hidden beyond a shade, a concept, a reflection...

Butterfly

Preuve d'amour / Proof of Love

Je dédie ce message à Pasqualino Stracuzzi, modèle de W. von Gloeden, dont je suis tombé amoureux dans une autre vie.

This post is dedicated to Pasqualino Stracuzzi, a W. von Gloeden model I felt in love with in one of my previous lives.



"Preuve d'amour: je te sacrifie mon Imaginaire — comme on  faisait la dédicace d'une chevelure. Ainsi peut-être (du moins le dit-on) accéderai-je à l'"amour vrai". S'il y a quelque similitude entre la crise amoureuse et la cure analytique, je fais alors le deuil de qui j'aime, comme le patient fait le deuil de son analyste: je liquide mon transfert, et c'est ainsi, paraît-il que la cure et la crise finissent. Cependant, a-t-on fait remarquer, cette théorie oublie que l'analyste, lui aussi, doit faire le deuil de son patient (faute de quoi l'analyse risque d'être interminable); de même, l'être aimé — si je lui sacrifie un Imaginaire qui cependant l'empoissait —, l'être aimé doit entrer dans la mélancolie de sa propre déchéance. Et il faut, concurremment à mon propre deuil, prévoir et assumer cette mélancolie de l'autre, et j'en souffre, car je l'aime encore."

Roland Barthes, Fragments d'un discours amoureux, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1977, p. 125.


My attempt to translate this text for my English-speaking readers...

"As a proof of love, I offer you the sacrifice of my Imagination -- just as ancient Greeks could offer the sacrifice of some of their hairs. Doing so, perhaps, at least it is said so, I could reach the "true love". If there is any similarity between a crisis of love and a psychoanalytical course of treatment, I should be mourning the one I love just as the patient mourns his (or her) analyst. I am getting rid of my transfer, such is the way, it seems, the course of treatment and the crisis of love are supposed to end up. However,  it has been noticed that such a theory forgets the fact that the analyst should also forget his (her) patient, otherwise psychoanalysis would be endless; in a similar way, my loved one, if I provide him with the sacrifice of my Imagination that was surrounding him, my loved one should feel the melancholy of his own vanishing condition. As an addition to my own grief, I should anticipate and take on myself the melancholy of the other one, and it causes to me a lot of pain, because I am still in love with him".

Roland Barthes, Fragments d'un discours amoureux, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1977, p. 125.

Le théâtre du désir (1)

"Comment pourrais-je oublier que j'aime tout en toi, ton regard, tes lèvres, la forme de ton visage, ce que ton visage exprime, les nuages du coeur, le voile des états d'âme, les désirs et les peines, ton histoire à toi, mon Pasqualino de Taormina...

How could I forget that I love everything in you, your gaze, your lips, the shape of your face, what your face is telling to me, the clouds upon your heart, a veil upon your emotions, desires and pains, your own story, my Pasqualino from Taormina....

Comment pourrais-je t'oublier, mon Francesco en fleurs, comment pourrais-je t'oublier, jeune berger des collines lointaines, toi qui sait chanter les chants qui font revenir les moutons, le soir, vers les lumières du village...

And how could I forget you, my blossoming Francesco, how could I forget you, young shepherd going to remote hills, you who knows how to sing the songs bringing the sheeps back home, at night, towards the lights of Taormina...

Les fleurs sont entre tes mains, mon Francesco en fleurs, tu fleuris l'épaule de Pasqualino, mon ami, mon amant de toujours...

You have flowers in your hands, my blossoming Francesco, you are flourishing Pasqualino's shoulder - he is my friend, my lover since ever...

Penses à tes amis, à tes amants, Pasqualino, mon bel ami... Pense à celui qui aimera cette photographie, demain, ailleurs, dans un autre siècle... Regarde ton ami, ton amant, Pasqualino, mon bel ami... Il aime ton âme autant que ton visage....

Please, just have a thought about your friends, your lovers, Pasqualino, my so cute friend... Just think about the guy who will love this photograph, tomorrow, elsewhere, in another century... Just look at your friend, your lover, Pasqualino, my cute friend... He loves your soul as much as your face...

J'aime cette photographie, douce et sensuelle, j'aime ces étoffes improbables qui entourent les corps, tuniques de bergers d'aujourd'hui dans une cité grecque rêvée, Taormina, Tauromenium, séjour de tous mes rêves, de tous mes amours...

Merci, Wilhelm, mon ami, pour la douce sensualité qui se dégage de cette image... Cette photographie est pleine de désir, de parfum, le parfum que s'échangent des garçons qui se désirent, ou qui regardent au delà de l'appareil photographique celui qui, peut-être, dans un autre lieu et un autre temps, les désirera aussi... 

I love this photograph, so sweet, so sensual, I love these weird clothes surrounding these boys bodies, these tunics of shephers in a dreamt Greek city, Taormina, Tauromenium, the place of all my dreams, of all my loves...

Thanks so much, Wilhelm, my friend, for the sweet sensuality emanating from this photograph... It is full of desire and perfume, the perfume shared by boys who desire one another or who look beyond the camera the viewer, in another place, in another time, who will desire them too...."

Letter from Philip to Wilhem von Gloeden, March 12 1902, Von Gloeden Archive, call number 1902/03/12/01.

Le théâtre du désir (2)

"Oui, j'aime tout en toi, mon Pasqualino, j'aime ton regard et tes lèvres, j'aime la musique de ton visage, j'aime le souffle de ta bouche, les questions de tes yeux, j'aimerai tant entendre le son de ta voix....

Yes, I love anything in you, my deare Pasqualino, I love your gaze and your lips, I love the music of your face as well as the breathe from your mouth or the questions asked by your eyes, I would love so much to hear the sound of your voice...

Et toi, mon Francesco en fleurs, je t'envie tant d'être l'aîné, l'amant, l'éraste, celui qui a choisi l'éromène à aimer, le garçon qui aime ta jeunesse en fleurs...

And you, my blossoming Francesco, I envy you so much for being the older one, the loving one, the erastes who chose the eromenos to fall in love with, the boy who will love your blossoming youth...

Il n'est pas besoin de mots, quand on aime et quand est aimé, les gestes suffisent, les mains et les doigts dessinent des poèmes, d'un corps à l'autre, d'une épaule à une poitrine, entre deux garçons qui écoutent la musique du désir...

Words are useless when one loves and when one is loved... Gestures are enough, hands and fingers are drawing poems, from a body to another one, from a shoulder to a chest, between two boys who are listening to the music of desire....

Il n'est pas besoin de mots, tout est dit, la musique du désir peut s'entendre dans le silence des voix, dans la polyphonie des gestes, dans la proximité des corps, dans l'arias des regards, dans le souffle d'une bouche entrouverte...

Pasqualino, mon ami, mon aimé, tu es aimé par l'aîné qui te caresse des yeux, que tu caresses de la main...

Words are not needed, everything is said, the music of desire can be listened through silent voices, through the polyphony of gestures, in bodies being close one to another, in the arias sung by the eyes, in the breathe of a half-open mouth...

Pasqualino, my friend, my loved one, your are loved by an older boy who is caressing you with his eyes, whom you are caressing with your hand...

Je vous aime tous les deux, Pasqualino et Francesco, je vous aime pour les poèmes que vous me rappelez, pour la musique que vous me faites entendre... Il est des mondes où des garçons peuvent s'aimer et de désirer, se caresser et se regarder...

Il est des théâtres du désir où il n'est pas besoin de mots, les gestes, les regards, les corps disent l'essentiel en dehors duquel tout n'est que bavardage vain...

Wilhem, mon ami, certaines de vos photographies sont des opéras, elles font chanter mon regard et mon désir, aimer vos garçons, c'est être un mélomane....

I love the both of you, Pasqualino and Francesco, I love your for the poems you remind me, for the music that you allow me to listen to... Yes, there are worlds where boys can love and desire one each other, can caress themselves and look one to another one....

There are some theaters of desire where words are not  needed: gestures, gazes, bodies tell hat really matters, and beyond what there is just useless gossip....

Wilhelm, my friend, some of your photographs are just operas, thanks to them, my gaze and my desire are singing... One cannot love your models without being a music lover... "

Letter from Philip to Wilhem von Gloeden, March 12 1902, Von Gloeden Archive, call number 1902/03/12/01.

Un lien / A link

Si vous aimez la musique de ce dessin, vous devriez visiter le site suivant:

Gay Bonheur

If you like the music of this drawing, you should visit this web site:

Gay Bonheur

Camera Obscura

"My dear Wilhelm,

I am very grateful for the new photograph you sent me... It is just sublime, in its composition, in its intent, in what it invites me to dream and think about... There is a wall and a body, a jar and flesh, white and brown, plants and a bird in a cage, a boy and a column.

I know you chose the frame and the angles, light and shades, and that you shot this photograph just as one catches a flying away moment...

Giovanni is splendid and his muscular body would have been an inspiration for Michel Angelo, for his frescoes on the Sistina Chapel ceiling... What a beautiful depiction of youth and grace, of body and mind, of balance and thought !

Your photograph, maestro, my dear friend, makes me dream and think... Giovanni is looking through the window into an obscure room, into the camera obscura, where light and shapes are printed forever on the albuminate paper sheet.

This photograph is an hymn to what is visible or invisible, to what Giovanni is looking at and what I will miss for ever. I can see Giovanni so focussed in his contemplation, in his gaze from the outside to the inside... Your Taormina lads, Wilhelm, are sometimes so strange...

I love this photograph, because it makes me imagine what I will never see, that is why Giovanni is leaning that way, why he is so focussed onto what he sees within the camera obscura... 

This photograph is an allegory of photography....

If I try to listen to your photograph, Wilhelm, my good old friend, I can hear a song, the song of a bird inside a cage. It is also a Sicilian song, an immemorial song that is sung at the top of Taormina rocks, since the most remote antiquity... "Carpe diem", says this love song, this song of wisdom... "Carpe diem", youth does not last for ever and even the most beautiful photographs will fade away, sometimes in the future, there will be only white on a white background, a solar wall to desire and to love..."

Philip, Letter to Wilhelm von Gloeden, june 6, 1902 (Von Gloeden Archive, call number 1902/06/04).

Camera Obscura

"Mon cher Wilhelm,

Merci de m'avoir envoyé cette nouvelle photographie... Je la trouve sublime dans sa composition, dans son intention, dans ce qu'elle donne à rêver et à penser... Il y a le mur et le corps, la jarre et la chair, le blanc et le brun, le végétal et l'oiseau dans sa cage, le garçon et la colonne. 

Je sais que tu as choisi le cadre et les angles, la lumière et les ombres, et que tu as pris cette photographie comme on saisit au vol un instant fugitif...

Giovanni est magnifique et son corps musclé aurait inspiré à Michel-Ange un ajout aux plafonds de la Chapelle Sistine... Quelle belle expression de la jeunesse et de la grâce, du corps et de l'esprit, de l'équilibre et de la pensée... !

Ta photographie, Maestro, mon cher ami, me fait rêver et penser... Giovanni regarde par la fenêtre dans une chambre obscure, dans la camera obscura, où la lumière et les formes viennent impressionner le papier albuminé et s'y fixer pour toujours. 

Cette photographie est un hymne au visible et à l'invisible, à ce que voit Giovanni et ce qui m'échappera à jamais. Je vois Giovanni absorbé dans cette contemplation, dans ce regard du dehors vers le dedans, tes garçons de Taormina, Wilhelm, sont si curieux...

J'aime cette photographie car elle me donne à imaginer ce que je ne verrai jamais, ce qui courbe le corps de Giovanni, ce qui l'absorbe au dedans de la chambre noire.

Cette photographie est une allégorie de la photographie...

En approchant l'oreille de ta photographie, Wilhelm, mon vieil ami, je peux entendre le chant, le chant de l'oiseau enfermé dans sa cage. C'est un chant sicilien, un chant immémorial que l'on chante sur les falaises de Taormina, depuis la nuit des temps... "Carpe diem", dit ce chant d'amour, ce chant de sagesse... "Carpe diem", la jeunesse n'a qu'un temps, et même les plus belles photographies s'effaceront un jour, blanches sur un fond blanc, il n'y aura plus qu'un mur blanc, un mur solaire à désirer et à aimer..."

Philip, Lettre à Wilhelm von Gloeden, 6 juin 1902  (Von Gloeden Archive, call number 1902/06/04)

La légende passionnée (Jacques Adeswärd-Fersen)

"Pardonne-moi de t'écrire au hasard des sentiments qui me troublent et qui me grisent, en écoutant les voix qui chantent l'amour, un amour nouveau, si blanc et si clair, qu'il semble être né d'une fleur de cristal. Puisque l'on dit que c'est c'est un mal à contagion délicieuse, tu as peut-être deviné que je t'aime sans attendre que je te l'aie dit... Jusqu'ici j'ai été mon chemin, tout simplement ému par ma pensée intérieure où se reflétait un peu de ton coeur. J'ai attendu que les regards s'aimantent à un contact plus doux que les baisers. Toujours à ton approche j'ai ressenti l'impression de voix très lointaines qui m'environnaient d'une atmosphère d'amour; j'entendais comme l'écho de vieux cantiques tout ruisselants de tendresse inexprimée: Et voici maintenant que je laisse ces voix te dire: je t'aime ! légères comme des oiseaux.

Je t'aime... Je t'aime...! si tu savais à quel point, tu aurais à ton tour de l'émotion pour moi. Car il me semble que je t'ai voulu ainsi dans mon inconscience et que déjà, au rêve des nuits anciennes, j'ai vu tes yeux. Ce sont tes yeux, tes jolis yeux de violette qui m'ont agenouillé, tes yeux si jolis qu'ils doivent parfumer l'air. Et vers eux j'élève la douce offrande de moi-même, avec le geste impudique et vainqueur des héros d'autrefois  !"

Jacques Adeswärd-Fersen, Ebauches et Débauches, Paris, Librairie Léon Vanier, 1901, p. 3-4.