Academic Study

 

Wilhelm von Gloeden (Private collection)

What are you thinking about?

 

 

  

Wilhelm von Gloeden — Albumen Print — Details — Private collection

Smile

Von Gloeden — Albumen print  (detail) — July 1897

Private collection

"Il Signore Barone was so funny... He spoke Italian with a weird German accent... And instead of "si", he said "ja ja ja"... So funny...

This photo was shot at the San Domenico monastery, in the cloister. Il Barone asked us to undress. The both of us were nude... Actually, at the time, we were used to hang on with our friends totally naked... At the beach, while swimming, while fishing... And sometimes in the mountain as well, at the peak of the heatwave, when we  were looking after our fathers goats...

At that time, I did not understand why Il Signore Barone wanted us to be naked... He was telling us about poets, gods and heroes, about Greeks and Romans, about the beauty of youth, about art and painting...

Il Signore Barone was very kind to us... He was generous too, and he offered small gifts, sometimes money for the photo session. 

Usually, it took quite a lot of time. Il Barone was checking the light, the background. He was cleaning us when we were a bit dirty and dusty, after working in the mountain or in the fields of olive-trees...

He was fine tuning our poses arms, legs, face, gaze, the way we should stand up, the way we should look at him.

Il Signore Gloeden was a true artist, like a painter, and sometimes like a sculptor, when he touched us to turn our body in the right direction, to have the best view on the small of our backs, on our shoulders, on our chests, on our tighs and legs...

"Don't move, don't breathe !  Bellisimi ragazzi, perfetto, grazie tanto, ja ja ja ja ja !"

I should share with you a little secret. 

You probably wonder why I am smiling that way on this photograph...I tried hard to stop a laughter actually...

You know why ? Because while we were standing on each side of this column, with my friend, totally naked, il Padre Alberto, il Priest di Taormina, entered the cloister.

He saw us. he raised his eyes to heaven and we heard: "Madre Dio Madonna Gesu Paster noster Ave Maria..."

Il Barone waved to him: "Hello hello, Padre, buon giorno !!!"

Il Padre Alberto and il Signore Gloeden were wery good friends, actually... Today, I suspect that Alberto was not totally unconcerned about Gloeden's photographs and the boys of Taormina...

Perhaps Il Signore gave him an albumen print of this photo, shot in the San Domenico's cloister, in july 1897, if I remember correctly...

So this is why I smile on this photograph... And just thinking about the Padre entering the cloister  and looking at the two of us, standing nude on each side of the column,   makes me laugh again today, so many years after..."

Von Gloeden Archive, Handwritten diary of G. T. , 1930. Call number: 1930/18

(GT was featured on many Gloeden's photographs. He was one of his favorite models)

Ode to Spring

Blossoming almond-trees

Blossoming boys

The spring is coming...

Taormina, at the end of XIXc century

Wilhelm von Gloeden — Albumen print — Private collection

Le berger de Taormina / Taormina's shepherd (featuring Von Gloeden's dog)

 

 

 

 

Wilhelm von Gloeden — Albumen print — ca 1899 — Private collection

Boys of Taormina

 

Wilhelm von Gloeden — Albumen original print — Private collection

Les photographies de von Gloeden racontent des histoires. Elles s'inscrivent dans une tradition, dans une mythologie. Elles sont des poèmes visuels, la traduction visuelle des épigrammes de Straton, Méléagre et autres poètes de la Muse garçonnière. Elles disent le désir et la séduction, la beauté et la jeunesse, l'essence des garçons et l'initiation vers l'âge adulte...

Von Gloeden's photographs tell stories. They belong to a tradition, to a mythology. They are visual poems, the visual translation of Strato, Meleager  and so many other poets of the Mousa paidiké... They tell stories of desire and seduction, of beauty and youth, the essence of boyhood and initiation towards manhood...

Who were you ? / Qui étais-tu ?

 

 

 

Wilhelm von Gloeden — Portrait (albumen print) — No number on the reverse.

(Private collection)

Qui étais-tu, jeune homme au si beau visage ? 

Quel était ton nom, garçon de Taormina ?

Quelle a été ton histoire, ta vie, ton destin ?

Etais-tu un berger dans les montagnes ?

Cultivais-tu les oliviers ?

Ou étais-tu un marin, un pêcheur ?

A quoi rêves-tu, avec tes beaux yeux perdus dans le vide ?

Sais-tu qu'aujourd'hui ton visage, ton regard me font rêver ?

Je penserai à toi

La prochaine fois 

Que j'irai à Taormina...

Who where you, cute lad with such a beautiful face?

What was your name, boy from Taormina?

What was your story, you life, your fate?

Were you a shepherd in the mountains?

Were you cultivating olive tree?

Or were you a sailor, a fisherman?

What are you dreaming about, with your beautiful eyes lost in the void?

Do you know today your face, your eyes make me dream?

I will remember and think about you

New time

I will go to Taormina

Portrait sublime / Sublime Portrait

 

Von Gloeden 

No number, no stamp, no date on the reverse

Albumen print, private collection. 

"Dear Wilhelm,

The portrait I bought from you is now framed and it is on the wall of my bedroom !

It makes me dream... It reminds me so many fond memories of my stay in Taormina, last spring...

Since I attended the photo session, and I remember quite well where and when it took place, I can easily decipher the face expression of your delicious model... Giovanni ? Luigi ? Marco... I am confused...

But I remember... You told him stories... You read poems... Theocritus and Strato's poems, if I am correct...

You told him: "Bellissimo, perfetto, bellissimo ragazzo... Don't move, don't breathe !"

I had the idea of the flower between his lips... "Brilliant idea !" you said...

It was spring in Taormina... Everything was blossoming, trees and... boys...

I love so much this photo, dear Wilhelm... And your model from Taormina too, obviously... He is gorgeous... So classical... He could be a boy from IIId century BC... He is the dreamt ephebe... I just love him... He is my dream, my icon... Please tell him... I am sure he reminds me...

I will try to visit you again next spring... 

Wilhelm, your photographic art is the mirror of my heart, of my soul...

Yours, as always

Philip"

Von Gloeden Archive, Letter from Philip to W. von Gloeden, September 1896. Call number: 1896/35

Pasqualino

Von Gloeden, Portrait of Pasqualino Stracuzzi.

On the back: stamp "W. von Gloeden, Taormina (Sicilia). Proprieta artistisca)

and number "1321" written with a pencil.

Private collection.

"My dear Wilhelm,

Thanks so much for this so beautiful portrait of my favorite Taormina boy, Pasqualino...

He is so beautiful, so expressive, so unique...

Bellissimo ragazzo, molto bello...

There is no beauty without spirituality.

There is no body without a soul.

There is no love without a cult.

I still remember fondly my stay at Taormina, last fall, and my visit at your house.

And I am so grateful for meeting Pasqualino and having some... well... some private and intimate time with him...

I love him. I love him so much.  He is just so... Well, you know...

I adore this new portrait of him...

I imagine he is praying: "Please, come back... Come back soon... I miss you..."

Please, Wilhelm, my friend, tell him; I miss him too. I miss him so badly.

I hope to travel to Sicily at the end of spring. When cherry trees are blossoming, as the boys of Taormina...

Please, Wilhelm, my friend, please tell Pasqualino that I will be back soon.

And that my first time in Taormina will be for him...

We will meet again in his so delicious casa, at the top of the village.

I know how to enter the house (and his room !) without being heard or noticed by his parents... I know his father does not know... !

Yours, as always...

Edwin, from Baltimore
Novembre 1899"

Von Gloeden Archive, Letter from Edwin to W. von Gloeden, November 1899. Call number: 1899/27.

My dear Wilhelm...

"My dear Wilhelm,

Sorry for this so long pause in my posts, in my blog Rêves Siciliens... I spent the last two months in Taormina, I visited the Protestant cemetery and I put a few roses on your grave...

I have seen the end of the Sicilian spring, the beginning of the Sicilian summer, I have smelt the perfumes of so many flowers, I have seen the light and the colors, I felt the warmth and the cool evenings...

I spent hours dreaming at the scenic landscape where Mount Aetna caresses a blue sea..

And never I was tired looking at Taormina, at its walls and roofs, on the cliffs, against the mountain...

I feel I shared your gaze and your vision, I breathed the same air you did, a century ago, I had the same feeling to be in a land loved by the ancient gods of Greece and Rome, a land where beauty is everywhere, in the sky and in the sea, in the flowers and in the blossoming boys....

I spent to much time, dreaming about the landscape, dreaming about you, dreaming about your gorgeous models I love so much...

Dear Wilhelm, I am still on the terrace of my hotel, I am sipping tea... I hope you will join me... Please, tell Pasqualino, Il Moro, Luigi, Pietro, Domenico, the Faun and so many others of your models to join me...

They will be most welcome... It is impossible to stay in Taormina without inviting all the beautiful and young forever ghosts haunting this place...

Please join me...

Yours as always...

Butterfly"

Taormina 1926

1926, Gloeden, Taormina. Five years before his death, Wilhelm von Gloeden signed this photograph. The buyer probably asked for this signature. He (or she ?) considered this photograph as a work of art, as a unique picture, as precious as a painting by a famous artist. And von Gloeden was willing to sign the prints of his photographs, in order to provide them with their uniqueness, with the special quality of a unique artifact.

Photography is a mechanical and an industrial art, allowing the reproduction of many copies of a single image, according to Walter Benjamin's famous statement. But a photograph is also a unique artifact, through the way it was printed, through its patina, through the chemical processes that fix light and shades in an unpredictable way.

This photograph is 86 years old. This blossoming boy is most likely ashes and dust in the Taormina's cemetery.

Through this photograph, however, this Taormina boy is young forever, he is a blossoming boy, as the flowers and leaves surrounding him.

I find in this photograph a Von Gloeden's trademark... a unique way to displaying the beauty of a young man and to concealing the focus of his mind, of his gaze, of his soul...

This photograph was conceived to inspire love and desire. In 2012, this photograph still inspires them. Love and desire.

But I don't know what I love and desire the most... The sensual display of an ephebe's body... Or the mystical focus of a gaze and a soul...

Together

"Dear Wilhelm,

Why, do you ask me... Why someone living in the early XXIst century is so tuned to your photographic art ? Why, at the time of the WWW, of Facebook and Twitter, is someone so lonely that he needs to connect with Taormina, at the end of the XIXth century and with my Arcadian and imaginary world... ?

Indeed, in our XXIst century, we have access to plenty of gay websites... Nudity, male frontal nudity are no more taboos... You just type "nude man" and Google will show you thousands of pics... So boring, so meaningless... Pornography is just here and now, there is no after, no before... no beside, no behind...

I am not interested in pornography... Too close, too poor, too obvious, too physiologic... I am looking for something else than a trigger to a "petite mort"... I am looking for what is lasting, for what creates dream and images, desires and longings...

Your photographic art makes me dream, today, in this early XXIth century, about what love and desire mean...

I am so much in love... With him, or him... Or with this another one... or just this one...

Your photographs, my dear Wilhelm, allow us to be together... We are together on the slopes of the Aetna, on the cliffs of Taormina... We are together on the edge between XIXth and XXth century...

I dream about your Taormina young men... I felt in love with a few (well mainly one) of them... I feel I know him so well... I feel him, I listen to his voice, I can almost caress him, although he is just dust in the Taormina cemetery...

Love and desire, however, are not concerned with such borders, death and life... I love him, because I feel he would have perhaps loved me... and I feel I have so much to share with him that he would perhaps have shared so much with me...

What is love, what is desire... ? What is a vintage desire, a desire for young men who are no more ?

Your photographs, dear Wilhelm, are questions... I should try to find the answers within myself...

Yours, as always...

Butterfly"

Greek Tragedy

In the background, there are just rocks and stones, the most inhuman background for a fully human tragedy...

On the ground, there is just sand, nothing else, just sand, flying through human fingers as the time flies away... Sand is the only possible ground for a human tragedy...

As in all Greek tragedies, there is anger and madness, there is love and hate, there is tenderness and despair, there is the will to kill, the desire to caress, there is an older one, a younger one...

Fear in your eyes, fear and a prayer in your eyes, and a promiss, an oath, never more, for eternity, I will be yours, I will be your loved one, I never betrayed, never...

But he does not believe him, he want to kill him, he is ready, he want to kill him, such a betrayal, he loved him so much, they were so close, they were brothers in love, they shared so much, warmth and breathe....

No, not now, my brother, my lover, don't kill me now... I love you so much, we shared so much, warmth and breathe... Don't forget our love, what we shared, the warmth of my body, my youth, my love... No, no, my brother, my lover, don't kill me now, I will be yours for ever... I want a kiss from you, not a blow...

I can hear Wilhelm von Gloeden's instructions to his favorite models... I can hear his voice, while he is carefully creating the stage set-up of this photograph... These two Taormina lads forgot they were shepherds, young peasants, fishermen... They forgot their time, the last years of the XIXth century...

They became heroes from a remote past, Greek heroes, playing the intemporal game of love and hate, of life and death.

I have never seen this von Gloeden's photograph in any of the modern books devoted to his art... I have not seen it in the web databases...

So it seems this photograph is pretty rare... It was probably in some private collection, and it was saved from the destruction of von Gloeden's photographic plates, during the fascist rule in Italy.

This beautiful and expressive photograph is now in my collection.

I love it very much...

While I look at it, I can hear the voices, the music of a very old, of a very in temporal Greek tragedy...

Une pensée qui passe...

(Collection privée)

Peut-on photographier une pensée qui passe, un état d'âme, un instant d'absence, une seconde d'éternité ?

Qu'est-ce qui se joue dans ce moment fugitif figé pour toujours ?

Il y a quelque chose de sublime dans cette image de von Gloeden, qui fait de ce portrait d'adolescent comme l'emblème de la photographie...

Le temps de la pose, de la pause, figé pour l'éternité.

Un regard qui se détourne du photographe, du spectateur pour plonger à l'intérieur de soi, au coeur d'une âme.

Ce garçon me semble être le même que celui qui incarnait les rêves orientaux de von Gloeden, Ahmed, Asrah, le garçon des sables et des oasis.

Rêves Siciliens: La mélancolie d'Ahmed - Asrah / The Melancholy of Ahmed - Asrah

Je retrouve dans ce portrait le même regard, la même mélancolie, la même gravité, trop profonde pour un visage si jeune.

Cette photographie invite à une méditation sans fin, à aller loin au coeur de sa mémoire et son imaginaire.

Cette photographie a la mélancolie d'un Nocturne de Chopin, la beauté de la sonate de Vinteuil...

J'aime le trait de plume de Gloeden qui a souligné le contour des yeux, là où tout se joue, à la jonction du regard et de l'âme.

Cette photographie est une invitation au rêve.

Pourquoi es-tu si sérieux, si mélancolique, si grave, jeune garçon de Taormina, au seuil du XXe siècle ?

About dream and desire...

"Dear Wilhelm,

Sorry to be back to you after such a long time... I was traveling abroad, so far away from Taormina... But I brought with me the sun of Sicily, the light of the San Domenico piazza, and the beauty of your models...

How could I forget them... They make me dream so much... I see them, I talk to them so much in my dreams... Your photographic eye made them so perfect, so relevant, so splendid, so desirable... Desire is such a strange thing... How could we desire a boy pictured on a photograph... ? The aura is more important than the body, the gaze is more important than touch, a photograph haunts his viewer longer than a body haunts its lover... At least, I think, I hope so...

I will never be tired to love your photographs, to love your models... You caught their youth, their beauty, what makes them so desirable, so lovable... Looking at your photographs is just reading a love story, a never ending love story, and day after day, I will say "I love you" to the boy you chose to focus on...

Am I loving a boy or a photograph ? I am loving beauty, intemporal beauty, hauting eyes, half open lips, waiting for a kiss, or about to say some loving words...

I am loving a boy from Athens or Sparta, from Alexandria or Rome, a blossoming boy at the peak of youth and beauty, just a flower that will last as far as youth does...

How to forget him, how to forget you... Each of your photograph is the first chapter of a love story, and the viewer should write its ending part... 

Loving a photograph is loving a boy for ever... Looking carefully at the photograph, I can feel the breathe, the warmth of your model, I can almost touch him and embrass him.... "Almost" is  what makes the difference... "Almost" is what will never put an end to my longing, to my love, to my desire, "almost" is what will allow the magic of your photograph to go on and on, for ever, for the fortunate viewer who will perhaps get it, after I disappeared...

Dear Wilhem, thanks so much for experimenting such a new way to write love poetry...

Yours, as always, Philip"

Von Gloeden Archive, Letter from Philip to W. von Gloeden, ca. 1912, call number 1912/00/05

Stage set up

"Dear Philip,

You asked me to share with you some of my little secrets, how I create the stage set up for my neo-Arcadian photographs...

I think about the stage set up as a painter. Every detail has its own importance. Foreground or background, various objects and props should contribute to build up the imaginary world where I want my Taormina boys to be displayed...

First, I am thinking about the floor: my old zebra skin suggests a world of luxury and sensuality, an exotic horizon, where Africa meets Sicily.

Then, I choose some of my favorite singing birds, sometimes some cicadas, and I put them into a small wicker cage. They will create the musical background of my photograph, a drone or a melody that will help the boys to focus and to relax...

Details matter so much... I love to use some of the Greek vases Taormina's peasants sometimes find in a forgotten tumb... A lekythos has such a perfect shape, it was devoted to the dead, and somehow, I think a lekythos is relevant in my photographic art, since I try to dig into cultural memory while making my models immortal...

Taormina's potters still remember the skill of their ancestors and a modern eartheware jar evokes a remote Antiquity where water, vine and oil where kept in such a way...

My house, Piazza San Domenico, and the surrounding buildings are timeless and suggest what the urban landscape of antique Tauromenium could be...

Then, I speak gently to my models, and I try to suggest a mood, a story, a legend. I want them to forget my camera, and to be the intemporal young men that adorned so many Greek temples... Pasqualino is my favorite model, he loves so much to play the part of a Theocritus shepherd, he loves so much to be loved and to inspire tenderness and desire... Who could fight against his gaze, again his grace ?   

Pietro has such a natural grace, who could ever guess that a Taormina's young fisherman remembers so well the grace and curves, the sensuality and boldness, the pride and tenderness of ancient Greek ephebes, who inspired so many dreams of beauty, so many desires and memories...

I am a perfectionist, and every detail matters for me... I spend so much times finding the right light, the perfect stage set up... Sometimes, I miss something... Sometimes a flower may hide another one... Actually, I love this visual lapsus... My Taormina boys do not belong to Arcadia, they live here and now, they love and they are loved, they are not concepts, they are real guys, and the most ethereal desire should not make us forget that there is no soul without a body, and that boys could be loved by men for who they are, sensual worlds to dream about and to caress with the eyes, lovable boys to be loved for their soul as well as for their body...

Each of my photographs is a love story... A love story between my Taormina models, between them and me... A love story between my photograph and the viewer...

Each of my photographs is the archive of a moment that vanished, of light and shade, of a birds song, of a splendid beauty...

In my craziest dreams, dear Philip, I hope my photographs will survive me and that in the future, someone will understand them and love them as well as you do...

With my warmest regards,

Wilhelm"

(Private collection)

Von Gloeden's letter to Philip, around 1902, Von Gloeden Archive, Call number ca 1902/00/04.

Boy or girl... ? Desire and imagination

A boy or a girl ? A boy with a whig and with a girlish veil and dress ?
Yes, most likely, a boy...

I love so much this photograph... I love the sweet face, I love the dreaming eyes, we will never know what he was looking at...

I love the intemporal poetry of this photograph, the beauty of this face is shining for ever, these eyes will haunt me for ever...

Wilhelm von Gloeden's camera caught for ever the fugitive time of a dream, of a memory, of a thought...

This boy of Taormina is looking at eternity...

I don't know your name... Perhaps in Taormina someone still remember it...?

Were you a friend of Pasqualino ?

You make me dream and I would love so much, so much to tell you, so many things...

I know you would listen to me, you would understand me and even smile, and again, you would turn your gaze towards this so remote horizon, back to an immemorial past or to a future beyond your imagination...

Yes, in 2011, there is still someone who is moved by your beauty, by your youth, by the mystery, the riddle of your gaze, so focussed, so deep, so silent...

You are now a part of my small collection of von Gloeden's masterworks... I choose only photographs that inspire me, photographs that are a music for my eyes, for my heart, for my thought...

Perhaps I am wrong, but I think I already crossed your path, a while ago, I was already seduced by your beauty, by your mystery, by your ambiguity. Boy or girl ? Pure beauty ignores borders... Any collection is ruled by its inner logic, by the gaze and the sensitivity of the collector...

Are you the same boy as this one, I posted on my blog on January 29, in 2010 ???

Yes, I think so...

I love this photograph, and, may I tell it frankly, I love you too, so much...

Dreaming about...

"You are so beautiful, the both of you, Taormina's lads,

You are pure youth and beauty, you are a caress for my eyes,

You are a song, a dream, a sorrow and a memory,

You are so close, so far away, 

Here and now, such a  long time ago and so far away...

How could I reach you, through the mirror of photography

You are on one side of the photograph,

I am on the other side,

Never, never we will meet... I will look at you for ever... 

I would love so much, so much to love you,

Actually I do, I would love so much to be loved by you...

Or just to be looked at, where I am, who I am, on the other side of the photograph...

So much sun, so much light, I love the curves, the shapes, the teen grace,

I love what is shown as much as what is hidden, 

I love you, Taormina's shepherds, I love the both of you...

I would love so much to hear your voice and your laughs,

I would love so much to feel you, so close, so close,

I just love you through a photograph, on the other side of the mirror...

It was such a warm day, such a summer day, at the peak of a wave,

At the peak of the hot wave... in the Taormina's wilderness...

I would love so much to caress the curves, the curves of the hot wave,

The curves of your bodies, so hot young sheperds from Taormina...

Perhaps we will meet, somewhere, elsewhere...

Perhaps we will meet if I can go through  this photograph,

If I can reach you, on the other side of this print,

If I can reach you, in Taormina's wilderness...

My Pasqualino, what is the name of your friend, so tender, so graceful ?

I love the curves, the grace of your friend, while he looks at you...

I would love to be a Joshua tree, to be a cicada, or just a rock,

A rock in Taormina's wilderness,

I would love to be a sun's beam, to be the breathe of the wind,

And to caress the both of you, so close, so far away,

From somewhere else, from the other side of the photograph"

Anonymous poem, Von Gloeden Archive, Call number ca 1900/anon/17.

Anonymous poem: A Faun meets a Taormina shepherd

"In the most remote areas of Taormina's wilderness,

Young shepherds met fauns and satyrs, Pan and Dionysos,

Hidding behind a rock, vanishing in a flash, a flash of light.

Most of the time they were mere illusions, a reflection of the sun,

A mirage in Taormina's wilderness, at the peak of the hot wave,

Or just a noise of a rock falling down from a cliff...

But Pasqualino met a faun, a real faun, sitting on a rock,

Far away from the usual paths of Taormina's young shepherds,

So far that he was in the middle of nowhere...

"Are you a god or just an illusion ?", asked Pasqualino.

"Did I love you a long time ago, I am sure I know you",

Answered the faun with his Dionysiac horns...

"Cute shepherd of Taormina, please, play a melody for me,

A melody from your reed flute, perhaps I will sing one for you,

A song of love, of the love of gods for Taormina's shepherds...

Please, have a seat on this rock, beside me, let us sing and dream,

Hope and remember, love and be loved, let me tell you the legend of fauns,

Please tell me the story of your life, where you are from, what you dream about..."

And Pasqualino played the most beautiful of the tunes the boys of Taormina know,

A music wide as an horizon, deep as eyes, sensitive as a caressing hand,

A music of longing and sorrow, of dream and hope, of loneliness and communion.

Wilhelm von Gloeden's camera obscura was able to catch the magic of this encounter,

The encounter of a Faun and of a young shepherd from Taormina,

At the turn of a century, at the threshold of two worlds, reality and imagination.

While looking at this photograph, forever I can listen to this forgotten melody,

To the melody of Fauns meeting young shepherds in the most remote wilderness,

Of Fauns falling in love with them, and crossing the invisible border,

The border between gods and humans, between dream and reality,

Between hope and memory,

So far, so deep, at this crossroads where a lover meet his loved one".

Anonymous poet, around 1907, Von Gloeden Archive, 1907, call number 1907/Anon/12

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