{photography} – Page 117

Sanctuarium Artis Elisarion

The Clear World of the Blessed Souls (detail).

Once again the web proves beneficial in showing you something you didn’t expect to find. The Sanctuarium Artis Elisarion was the grandiose name given by Elisar von Kupffer (1872–1942) aka Elisarion to his art-filled villa at Lake Maggiore which he shared with his partner Eduard von Mayer. Kupffer was an artist, writer, historian and another of those rare pioneering gay men who used their position and their work to proselytise for social tolerance of same-sex attraction.

The Clear World of the Blessed Souls (detail).

Kupffer and Mayer’s Sanctuarium is documented at this site (Italian and German language only) with details of the artist’s paintings and the villa’s extraordinary mural, The Clear World of the Blessed Souls, which depicts a luscious homoerotic paradise. Also present are a few of the photos Kupffer used as a basis for his paintings (below). The mural title refers to Klarismus (Clarity), apparently the name of Kupffer and Mayer’s spiritual philosophy and a creed which evidently involves lots of naked boys. Where do I sign up?

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Sascha Schneider, 1870–1927
• The art of Andrey Avinoff, 1884–1949

The recurrent pose 34

Another double helping of the pose from which there is no respite. The self-portrait above is by Flickr user Klardrommar who tells us that the scars on his leg are from a car accident. The photo below is by one Olav Murillo and comes via Arquipélago do silêncio and a tip from here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive

Danseur Noble

The Adam Kozik Studio was in touch earlier this week with news of Danseur Noble, a photo-series of male dancers posed indoors and out. See the rest of the series here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The tights have it
• Torero
• Eonism and Eonnagata
• Tiger Lily
• Chris Nash
• Peter Reed and Salomé After Dark
• Felix D’Eon
• Dancers by John Andresen
• Youssef Nabil
• Images of Nijinsky

Weekend links 12

Simulation No. 136 (1973); From the Archigram Revival Project.

• Scientific American looks at DMT: “the only psychedelic known to occur naturally in the human body”. Related: Hofmann’s Elixir: LSD and the New Eleusis, a book from the Beckley Foundation Press.

• “People weren’t quite sure what this guy was doing.” Colin Marshall talks to Eno biographer David Sheppard.

• LA FAN presents its debut group show, Eve in the Garden of Lost Angels, curated by Milla Zeltzer, at Optical Allusion Gallery, downtown Los Angeles, from May 15 to June 12, 2010.

• Masturbation: literature’s last taboo. The words “last” and “taboo” should never be used together; taboos don’t vanish, they migrate.

• Announcing the Text: Development of the Title Page, 1470–1900.

• The Anachronism is an award-wining Steampunk short about two children who discover the wreck of a giant squid submarine on a beach near their home.

• Out There is a brand new, bi-annual, international magazine for gay men and their friends.

• The Big Picture looks at the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull.

• Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai on May 1st.

• (Walter) Benjamin in Extremis.

• Nathalie returns to Bomarzo.

• Acronymic songs of the week: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (1967) by The Beatles; The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice (1967) by The Jimi Hendrix Experience; London Social Degree (1968) by Billy Nicholls; Love’s Secret Domain (1991) by Coil.

Mark Twain

Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain, 1894.

Mark Twain died 100 years ago today, April 21st, 1910, and the anniversary is being marked in America by a variety of events throughout the year, some of which are listed on this dedicated site. I’ve always been grateful to Twain for cheering a portion of my dismal school days with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of two books we were forced to read that I actually enjoyed. (The other was Lord of the Flies; both stories, perhaps significantly, concern Wild Boys.) I’ve wanted to re-read Huckleberry Finn for years, perhaps now would be a good time to actually do so.

Unlike many writers of his generation, Twain’s work still seems vital today, and not only his fiction. His broadsides and polemics return continually to basic issues of tolerance and humanity and are often as relevant now as they were a century ago. Twain had little patience for the hypocrisies of his fellows when it came to matters of religion, warfare or the treatment of other human beings; like his contemporary, Oscar Wilde, he’s always been endlessly quotable. Consider these two extracts:

Citizenship? We have none! In place of it we teach patriotism which Samuel Johnson said a hundred and forty or a hundred and fifty years ago was the last refuge of the scoundrel—and I believe that he was right. I remember when I was a boy and I heard repeated time and time again the phrase, ‘My country, right or wrong, my country!’ How absolutely absurd is such an idea. How absolutely absurd to teach this idea to the youth of the country. True Citizenship at the Children’s Theater, 1907

But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn’t anger me. Letter to Mrs FG Whitmore, February 7, 1907

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…then wonder what Twain would have to say about America’s current crop of blustering yahoos with their flags and crosses and misspelled signs.

A copy of the first edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, illustrated throughout by EW Kemble, can be downloaded at the Internet Archive. For Twain’s dim view of the Bible and its adherents, see his Letters from the Earth. The Tesla Memorial Society has another photograph of Twain in the great inventor’s laboratory.