Ode visuelle pour amandiers en fleurs Visual Ode for blossomed almond-trees

Cette célèbre photographie, l'un des fleurons de la collection Alinari et présentée à l'exposition de la Villa Lysis à Capri, est un véritable poème visuel pour amandiers en fleurs dans les collines de Sicile, avec l'Etna aux pentes encore neigeuses dans le lointain et le golfe de Taormina en contrebas.

Moment de plénitude, véritable équivalent visuel du Sacre du Printemps de Stravinsky, où la floraison de la nature et le panorama grandiose entourent deux adolescents assis paisiblement au pied d'un arbre, absorbés dans la contemplation du paysage sous une lumière dont la patine vintage de la photo accentue la douceur.

En ce début du XXe siècle, avec ses deux jeunes modèles, von Gloeden retrouve l'inspiration idyllique d'un Théocrite ou d'un Virgile, une communion avec la nature et les forces de la renaissance printanière, dans les hautes terres des bergers, des faunes et des ménades, des héros et des dieux vagabonds.

Il me semble reconnaître dans le jeune homme au visage de profil et aux cheveux bouclés "Il Moro", qui traverse de sa beauté sauvage l'oeuvre et la vie de von Gloeden.

This famous photograph is one of the masterworks of the Alinari collection (Firenze) and it is currently displayed at the Von Gloeden's exhibition at the Villa Lysis in Capri. It is a unique and inspired visual poem about blossomed almond trees, in the mountains of Sicilia. Mount Etna and its still snowy slopes stand in the background while, the curve of Taormina bay is visible downward.

It is a time of plenitude, like a visual counterpart of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring: blossoming nature and a scenic panorama surround two teen boys quietly sitting under an almond-tree. They contemplate the landscape, illuminated by a gentle light, emphasized by the beautiful patina of this vintage photograph.

At the very beginning of XXth century, with his two young models, von Gloeden reinvents the idyllic inspiration of ancient poets such as Theocritus and Virgil, a communion with nature and the regenerating forces of spring, in the remote lands where one could meet sheperds and fauns, maenads, heroes and wandering gods.

It seems to me that the teen boy with brune curled hairs and whose face is visible could be "Il Moro": his wild beauty haunted von Gloeden's life and photographic work.

Von Gloeden revient à Capri...

Dans le site enchanteur de la Villa Lysis, à Capri, la Fondazione Capri présente une exposition exceptionnelle de cent photos originales de W. von Gloeden, conservées dans la Collection Alinari à Florence. 

Wilhelm von Gloeden - Dioniso a Villa Lysis (VILLA LYSIS - Capri) - Exibart.com

Cette exposition est présentée du 19 août au 4 octobre, elle constitue une occasion unique de voir les chefs d'oeuvre de von Gloeden dans le cadre néo-classique de la Villa du Comte. La beauté des lieux et des paysages est habitée par une certaine mélancolie, par la mémoire de la fin tragique du Comte Fersen, comme des rêves et des désirs qui entourèrent sa vie... 

(Photos Adalberto Tiburzi)

Exposition von Gloeden à Paris

Alors que la Villa Lysis à Capri accueille actuellement une grande exposition von Gloeden, à partir de la collection du Musée Alinari à Florence, La Galerie "Au bonheur du Jour" à Paris (11 rue Chabanais, 75002) propose pendant le mois de septembre une magnifique rétrospective de clichés originaux de von Gloeden et Plüschow. On y reconnaît certains des chefs-d'oeuvre de ces maîtres de la photographie masculine, on y découvre aussi des photos moins connues, portraits et paysages, qui toutes nous invitent à un voyage dans le temps, dans les paradis arcadiens de Taormina au début du siècle dernier...

.AU BONHEUR DU JOUR - Fine Art Gallery, Paris -Photographies anciennes, Vintage Photographies XIXth & XXth century

Von Gloeden Exhibition in Paris

In order to celebrate the current renewal of interest for von Gloeden's photographic art (see the exhibition at Villa Lysis in Capri), the Art Gallery "Au bonheur du Jour" in Paris invites us to discover a unique Restrospective of von Gloeden  and Plüschow vintage photographs: landscapes, portraits and nudes...

All the displayed photographs are for sale.

If you are visiting Paris in September, this exhibition is a "must see".... 

AU BONHEUR DU JOUR - Fine Art Gallery, Paris -Photographies anciennes, Vintage Photographies XIXth & XXth century

Collecting Von Gloeden's photographs...

Many contemporary books offer good reproductions of von Gloeden's photographs... Actually, not so many... First, because, publishers have to make their mind about authorship, when there is no stamp or serial number to attribute a photograph to von Gloeden or to one of his followers & colleagues such as von Plüschow or Galdi... Then, because very few modern fac simile provide us with the vintage patina, with the unforgettable charm of an original photograph. Vintage photographs are like archaeological testimonies: shades and light, black and white allow us to contemplate a model who was in his teen years a centuy ago... The photograph is a promiss of futures, a step in a young life, while we know, as viewers or collectors, that this young man is dead now. However, his youth, his charm, his beauty are still radiating today... 

A printed fac simile is an industrial picture — Walter Benjamin wrote a famous essay about mechanical reproduction of pictures. An original von Gloeden's photograph has its own story... Someone bought it in Taormina. Someone chose it, because he wanted to have a copy of this photograph and he was attracted by the model. Someone paid for it. Such a photograph keeps the thoughts, the memories, the desires, the sorrows it inspired. And the model still inspires dreams, desires and longing more than a century after the photograph was shot...

Before the WWW, before gay blogs and porn commercial web sites, buying a photograph from von Gloeden in Taormina was for many European gay men the only way to find a visual and artistic translation of their desires... Sicilia, Classical Antiquity, idyllic set-up were as many ways to give a visual reality to forbidden dreams... While linked with a remote Arcadian utopia, von Gloeden's photographs and postcards could be safely bought, exchanged and collected...

I am fascinated by the poetry of these original photographs. For me, looking at them means listening to a deliciously vintage music...

Socrates by the Fountain

I am fascinated by this photograph (hand signed by von Gloeden, with the date: 1902). The set up is so quiet, so serene... And the old man looks so familiar, he is Socrates talking with one of the teen boys he loved to spend times with, in the streets, the gardens and the gymnasiums of Athens. They are looking so deeply into the pond, I imagine they are meditating about the tricks of apparence and vision, about reality and shades.

Their images are reflected on the surface of the mirroring water. Surface, depth, truth, illusion, eternity, ephemereal vision... 

There is a second mirror, von Gloeden's camera: it is not reflected on the surface of the pond, but it catches Socrates and his young friend as well as their reflections.

Through this beautiful photograph, von Gloeden offers us a deep visual meditation about the nature of image and light, about the power of mirrors, about reality and its reflection, about vanishing appearances and the permanence of a photograph, that is still there, a long time after the photographer's and his models death... 

Socrate à la fontaine (Von Gloeden)

"— Dis-moi, Lysis, que vois-tu à la surface de l'eau ?

— Je vois de l'eau, Socrate.
— Regarde mieux, que vois-tu, Lysis ?
— Je vois ton reflet, Socrate, et le mien.
— Qu'est-ce qu'un reflet ?
— C'est une ombre lumineuse, Socrate...
— Une ombre qui est pure apparence, Lysis, un non être, la surface des choses, la surface de l'eau..
— Mais peut-être qu'il y a un Socrate et Lysis de l'autre côté du miroir et qu'ils nous regardent ?
— Oui, peut-être qu'ils nous regardent, comme des reflets à la surface de l'eau...
— De quel côté du miroir sommes-nous, Socrate ?
— Qui peut le dire, Lysis, sans quitter la surface pour aller au fond des choses...
— Peut-être devrions-nous jeter un caillou dans l'eau pour voir si nous nous dissipons comme un songe...
— Il ne faut pas réveiller un miroir qui dort, Lysis... Nous sommes peut-être le reflet d'une idée...
— Comme dans la caverne, Socrate ?
— Oui, comme dans la caverne... Ton reflet, Lysis, me permet de voir l'idée de la beauté sans me brûler les yeux...
— Et ton reflet, Socrate, me permet peut-être de voir l'envers des apparences sans traverser le miroir de l'eau..."

The Magic of Photography

One day, you met von Gloeden in a street of your village and he kindly asked you if you would accept to model for him, just for a photographic session. Perhaps it was in 1898, or 1900, or even 1902, you don't remember exactly... Many of your friends in Taormina already did it, they told you they had fun, that the Baron was a nice guy, funny, generous and inspired... So you were quite curious and excited and you said: "Yes, why not...".

You got an appointment and at the fixed time, you were at the Baron's Villa...

You had a nice talk with him in the garden, among rare trees and sweet-smelling flowers, and you spend some times together, just looking at the expanded horizon, towards the sea, towards the Etna mountain, from the terrace.

When Gloeden invited you with his gentle voice to take your clothes off, you smiled, you were expecting it, you did not feel embarrassed, most of Taormina lads were accustomed to be naked together on the beach,  for lazy sun bathes or for swimming in the sea...

Then, the Baron put a large white clothe on your shoulders and a wreath of ivy and flowers  among your dark hairs. He told you unheard and fascinating stories, about guys you never met in Taormina, with such strange names as Plato, Pindar, Virgil or Theocritus, he told you about a world of heroes and young gods, about a forgotten world where beauty was shining everywhere, a world where white clothes around shoulders were like a frame for splendid young and naked bodies...

While listening to the Baron, you were forgetting its strange German accent mixed with the music of your Italian language, you were forgetting the stage set up, your artificial pose, you were forgetting your own name, Giovanni, and your real life as a fisherman, who had to get up so early every day to work on his father's ship... You were Alexis and Corydon, Daphnis and Lykinos, you were a cute epheb training in a gymnasium or a young shepherd desired by Apollo, or perhaps a young follower of Dionysius, wandering far from the city, where human paths can cross those of the gods...

And suddenly, you heard so many sounds, you remembered so many memories, you saw so many lights, that your forgot von Gloeden's camera, and your eyes shift to the left, towards invisible horizons you were the only one to contemplate...

Fragility

I am comfortable with the idea that my blog is fragile and ephemeral, and that it could disappear right now, if its host, nibblebit.com, decides to delete it or if it stops its online services.

What would be lost, what would be remembered ?

Even a few readers, here and now, would make such an experience worthy of being tried...

Feelings, ideas, dreams, memories, free association of words, inner music of desires, hopes and sorrows are like shades moving on the ground or birds crossing the sky: fading away is their fate...

My blog is at the same time my ground and my sky... I am trying to open my own path while looking at the clouds and at the stars...

Dionysus in Love

Navigating through  the WWW, by chance or because someone planned it, I found an unexpected and pleasant harbour: a place in New York city, between Grand & Canal, exactly 26 Wooster Street, a place called The Leslie / Lohman Gay Art Foundation.

It is a great Art Gallery anyone, gay or not, should visit during his/her stay in New York. It is also a virtual place anyone can visit thanks to the following URL:

leslie/lohman gay art foundation

I was particularly moved and inspired by the exhibition of an Italian artist named Marco Silombria (May 6 - June 27, 2009).

I love the concept of Dionysus in Love. It reminds me a forgotten world of dreams, illusions, desires and madness, resulting from an immoderate use of wine and trance music. Dionysios is this Greek god who loved to appear in wild landscapes where maenads, fauns and satyrs had fun with subverting the existing social order, borders and conventions...

I love this depiction of Dionysus playing on a double flute two melodies, perhaps for two desired ones, or perhaps a first music to be heard while awaken, and the other one while asleep, at the gate of a sweet dream along a loved one... I hear such a sensual music from this young musician with his almond eyes... If I was a poet of the Greek Anthology, I would probably write how jealous I feel of his double flute that is caressed by the hands and the breath, that is kissed by the lips of such a beautiful young god....

I love this other work by the same Italian artist, Marco Silombria. Bunches of grapes as well as the shape of the vase suggest against a Dionysiac context. Is this naked young man frightened of the power of wine, of the way it erases borders between light and darkness, between dream and reality, between desire and social order ?