Wilhelm von gloeden biography definition
Wilhelm von Gloeden
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Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (September 16, –February 16, ) was a German photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his pastoral nude studies of Sicilian boys, which usually featured props such as wreaths or amphoras suggesting a setting in the Greece or Italy of antiquity.
From a modern standpoint, his work is commendable due to his controlled use of lighting as well as the often elegant poses of his models. Innovative use of photographic filters and special body makeup contribute to the artistic perfection of his works.
Famous in his own day, his work was subsequently eclipsed for close to a century, only to re-emerge in recent times as "the most important gay visual artist of the pre–World War I era" according to Thomas Waugh.
Wilhelm von gloeden boys He was also known for landscape photography. Most of the surviving pictures negatives and prints are now in the Fratelli Alinari photographic archive in Florence which in bought glass negatives and vintage prints formerly belonging to Buciuni to add to its existing collection of prints [ 20 ] and further prints which fetch hundreds of pounds at auction are in private collections or held by public institutions such as the Civico Archivo Fotographico in Milan. The ones that garnered the most widespread attention in Europe and overseas were usually relatively chaste studies of peasants, shepherds, fisherman, etc. Authority control databases.Biography
Although von Gloeden claimed to be a minor German aristocrat from Mecklenburg, the von Gloeden family and its heirs have always insisted that no such person existed in their family records and his claim to The Barony von Gloeden was without warrant; the barony became extinct in with the death of Baron Falko von Gloeden.
Wilhelm von Gloeden was the son of head forester (Forstmeister) Carl Hermann von Gloeden (–) and his wife Charlotte née Maassen (–; from von Hammerstein). After studying art history in Rostock () he studied painting under Carl Gehrts at the Kunstakademie in Weimar (–77) until he was forced by lung disease (apparently tuberculosis) to interrupt his schooling for a year, convalescing at a sanatorium in the Baltic Sea resort of Gröbersdorf.
In a search for health he travelled to Italy (–78), at first staying in Naples before moving on to Taormina in Sicily, lodging at the Hotel Vittoria before buying a house near San Domenico, where he remained until his death in , apart from the period during World War I, when he was forced to leave Sicily to avoid incarceration as an undesirable alien.
Wilhelm von gloeden biography definition ap Some of his portraits and scenes of Sicily were eventually published in National Geographic. He also photographed landscapes and some studies were of or included women. In , some 1, glass negatives from Gloeden's collection inherited by Buciuni and 2, prints were confiscated by Benito Mussolini 's Fascist police under the allegation that they constituted pornography, and were destroyed; another 1, negatives were destroyed in , but Buciuni was tried and cleared at a court in Messina — of disseminating pornographic images. While today von Gloeden is mainly known for his nudes, in his time he was also famous for his landscape photography that helped popularize tourism to Italy.The mayor of Taormina was the German landscape painter Otto Geleng (–), who had moved there in Through him von Gloeden soon became acquainted with the local inhabitants. He set up his photographic studio in Taormina at first as a hobby and was exhibiting his work internationally by (London), including Cairo (), Berlin (–99, including a solo exhibition), Philadelphia (), Budapest & Marseilles (), Nice ( & ), Riga (), Dresden () and Rome (World Fair ).
His well-known study of two young boys clinging to an Ionic column was published in The Studio (London) in June (above a nude study of Cecil Castle by Baron Corvo), which brought his work to the notice of a wider public. In , when the family fortune was lost through the "Hammerstein affair", he received as a gift from his friend and patron the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin a large-format plate camera.
Soon his work brought him visitors from Europe including royalty, industrialists, writers (Oscar Wilde in December ) and von Gloeden ceased work as a photographer, selling his house on the Piazza S. Domenico in Taormina in return for an annuity & residence rights.
Von Gloeden was wealthy, and also scrupulously shared the proceeds of his sales with his models, providing a considerable economic boost in this comparatively poor region of Italy, which might explain why the homosexual aspects of his life and work were generally tolerated by the locals.
His cousin Guglielmo Plüschow (–), also a photographer of nudes, helped von Gloeden get more familiar with the technical side of photography (until then von Gloeden had not been a hobby photographer). Other important teachers of von Gloeden were local photographer Giovanni (or John) Crupi (–) in the Via Teatro Greco and the pharmacist/photographer Giuseppe Bruno (–) in the Corso.
Works
While today von Gloeden is mainly known for his nudes, in his time he was also famous for his landscape photography that helped popularize tourism to Italy. He also documented earthquake damage in Reggio Calabria & Messina in This may also explain why the locals mostly approved of his work.
The majority of von Gloeden's pictures were made before World War I in the period During the war he had to leave Italy and after returning in he photographed very little but continued to make new prints from his voluminous archive. In total the Baron took over images (and possibly up to ), which after his death were left to one of his models, Pancrazio Buciunì (also spelled Bucini; his dates sometimes given as cc but probably should be ), known as Il Moro (or U Moru) for his North African looks.
Il Moro had been von Gloeden's lover since the age of fourteen, when he had first joined the household of the Baron. In some glass negatives from von Gloeden's collection (inherited by Buciuni) and prints were confiscated by Benito Mussolini's Fascist police under the allegation that they constituted pornography and destroyed; another negatives were destroyed in , although Buciuni was tried and cleared at a court in Messina (–41) of disseminating pornographic images.
Most of the surviving pictures (negatives and prints) are now in the Fratelli Alinari photographic archive in Florence (which in bought glass negatives & vintage prints formerly belonging to Buciuni to add to its collection of prints already held) and further prints (which fetch hundreds of pounds at auction) are in private collections or held by public institutions such as the Civico Archivo Fotographico in Milan.
Wilhelm von gloeden biography definition Although von Gloeden claimed to be a minor German aristocrat from Mecklenburg , the von Gloeden family and its heirs have always insisted that no such person existed in their family records and his claim to The Barony von Gloeden was without warrant; the barony became extinct in with the death of Baron Falko von Gloeden. It is even speculated [ by whom? In , Gloeden ceased work as a photographer and sold his house on the Piazza San Domenico in return for an annuity and residence rights. Homintern : how gay culture liberated the modern world.Attitudes towards his work during his lifetime and later
Von Gloeden generally made several different kinds of photographs. The ones that garnered the most widespread attention in Europe and overseas were usually relatively chaste studies of peasants, shepherds, fisherman, etc., featured in clothes like togas or Sicilian traditional costume and generally downplayed their homoerotic implications.
He also photographed landscapes and some studies were of or included women. His models were usually posed either at his house, or among the local ancient ruins, or on Monte Ziretto (cm.) located two kilometres to the north of Taormina and famous in antiquity for its quarries of red marble, where he had rented a country house.
He wrote in "The Greek forms appealed to me, as did the bronze-hued descendants of the ancient Hellenes, and I attempted to resurrect the old, classic life in pictures.
Vincenzo galdi: Baron von Gloeden's life partner was Pancrazio Bucinuni, who also was one of the Baron's models. Hidden categories: CS1 French-language sources fr CS1 maint: location missing publisher Articles containing German-language text CS1 German-language sources de Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Articles needing additional references from January All articles needing additional references Use mdy dates from April Biography with signature Articles with hCards All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from May Articles containing Italian-language text Articles containing Sicilian-language text Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from December Articles with unsourced statements from December Articles with unsourced statements from September Commons category link is on Wikidata Articles with Spanish-language sources es. The most important family connection for Wilhelm was his half-sister Sophie Raabe from his mother's first marriage, who lived with him in Sicily for years. The mayor of the town in — was the German landscape painter Otto Geleng [ de ] — , who had moved there in
The models usually remained merry and cheerful, lightly clad and at ease in the open air, striding forward to the accompaniment of flutes and animated chatter. More than a few greatly enjoyed the work and anxiously awaited the moment when I would show them the finished picture."
More explicit photos in which the boys aged between about ten and twenty and occasionally older men were nude (sometimes with prominent genitalia) and which, because of eye contact or physical contact were more sexually suggestive were traded "under the counter" and among close friends of the Baron, but "as far as is known, Gloeden's archive contained neither pornographic nor erotically lascivious motifs".
The popularity of his work especially in Germany, England, and America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can possibly be attributed to three major reasons:
- The Classical and painterly themes in which his work wreathed itself served as a cultural "badge of protection" and the studies were often described in exhibition reviews as models for painters and were used by ethnologists to illustrate racial types.
- At that time male-male-love was unthinkable to many who saw his images.
- New printing technologies enabled the mass reproduction and sale of his work in postcard form from by reputable publishers.
Other similar photographers at the time
Von Gloeden's cousin, Guglielmo Plüschow, similarly photographed male nudes in Rome, Italy.
From an artistic standpoint, Plüschow's work is somewhat inferior to von Gloeden's as the lighting in Plüschow's works is often too harsh and the poses of the models look quite stilted. Plüschow was already a firmly established photographer when von Gloeden started doing photographs of his own in the early s. It is even speculated that von Gloeden was taught the (then difficult) art of photography by Plüschow himself.
However, von Gloeden soon eclipsed Plüschow, and later works by Plüschow were frequently erroneously attributed to von Gloeden.
Up until , his assistant Vincenzo Galdi secretly made work which he tried to pass off as von Plüschow's own. However, Galdi's pictures lack elegance, often also feature females and generally tend to border on the pornographic.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Wilhelm von Gloeden" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic. See Art and Popular Culture's notice.