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Elisar von Kupffer

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Elisàr von Kupffer. Self-portrait (1917)

Elisàr August Emanuel von Kupffer (February 20, 1872 – October 31, 1942) was a Baltic German artist, anthologist, poet, historian, translator, and playwright. He used the pseudonym "Elisarion" for most of his writings.[1]

Early life

He was born on February 20, 1872, in Sophiental, near Tallinn, Estonia, the son of Adolf von Kupffer (1833–1896), a doctor from an aristocratic German family.[1]

From an early age he was in delicate health, having suffered through meningitis, rheumatoid arthritis, scarlet fever and measles. However he was also a good student and at the age of nine he wrote his first play, "Don Irsino".[1]

In 1883 he enrolled in school in Reval (now Tallinn), the same year the family moved from Sophiental to Jootma Manor.[1] At the age of nineteen, he entered the German Annenschule in St. Petersburg. It was near there, in Levashovo, that he met the person who would become his best friend, the historian and philosopher Eduard von Mayer (1873-1960), and his first partner, Agnes von Hoyningen-Huene (1872-1961)[who?]. In 1894 he moved to Germany.[1]

Career

Eduard von Mayer by Clara Grosch [de] (1917)

In 1895 he published “Leben und Liebe" (Life and Love). In autumn of that year he moved to Berlin to study at the Berlin Art Academy and moved in with Eduard von Mayer. In 1896 von Kupffer left Agnes von Hoyningen-Huene. He wrote the drama "Der Herr der Welt" (Master of the World) and the three one-act plays "Irrlichter" (Ghost Lights, the three stage plays Andrei, Erich and Narkissos). In 1897 he published the anthology "Ehrlos" (Infamous).[1]

Von Mayer graduated in 1897 and the two of them travelled to Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Capri, Ischia, Pompeii, Taormina, Messina, Catania, Syracuse, Palermo, Rome, Monte Carlo, Avignon, Geneva, and once again, Berlin. They spent the summer in Thuringia and Heiligendamm. They went back to Italy in 1899. In 1899/1900 Adolf Brand published von Kupffer's influential anthology of homoerotic literature, Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur (Love of Favourites and Love between Friends in World Literature) in Berlin. The anthology was reprinted in 1995. The anthology was researched and created, in part, as a protest against the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde in England.[1]

In 1908 he published a book on Sodoma, the Renaissance artist. In 1911 Eduard von Mayer and Elisar von Kupffer founded the publishing house Klaristische Verlag Akropolis in Munich and von Kupffer published a stage play "Aino und Tio", "Hymnen der heiligen Burg" (Hymns of the Holy Castle) and "Ein neuer Flug und eine heilige Burg" (A New Flight and a Holy Castle). His work was also published and reviewed in the gay magazine Akademos published by Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen. The first Claristic community was founded in Weimar in 1911. In 1912 he published "Der unbekannte Gott" (The Unknown God). In 1913, the Brogi Gallery in Florence hosted his first exhibition. In 1913 they founded a Claristic community in Zurich.[1]

Later life and death

In 1915, with the World War I and growing animosity towards Germans, the two men left Italy to move to Ticino, where von Kupffer established himself as a fine-art painter and muralist in Locarno, Switzerland. The two men were granted Swiss citizenship in 1922. From 1925 to 1929 they transformed their Minusio villa at the Lake Maggiore into an opulent collection of art, the "Sanctuarium Artis Elisarion". He was also a photographer, making photographic studies of boys for use in the creation of his paintings, but more often his own rejuvenated form can be seen as a subject of his art works. The couple were at the heart of a religious movement called the Klarismus (in English: 'Clarity') and The Elisarion Community was founded at Minusio in 1926. The visitors that started to arrive in the 1930s gradually stopped towards World War II. Health problems led to von Kupffer's death on October 31, 1942. From 1981 the "Sanctuarium Artis Elisarion" has been a Museum dedicated to von Kupffer's work. The villa was willed to the municipality of Minusio, and their ashes are interred together inside it.[1]

Works

  • "Leben und Lieben. Gedichte" (1895).
  • Irrlichter (1900, three theatreworks: Andrei, Erich and Narkissos).
  • "Klima und Dichtung. Ein Beitrag zur Psychophysik" (1907).
  • "Giovan Antonio — il Sodoma. Eine Seelen- und Kunststudie von Elisàr von Kupffer" (1908) in: Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, edition IX.
  • Aino und Tio (1907).
  • "Was soll uns der Klarismus? — Nationale Kraft" (1912).
  • "Die Gotteslästerungen der Bibel und der Antike" (1912).
  • "Hymnen der Heiligen Burg" (1913).
  • "3000 Jahre Bolschewismus" (1919).
  • "Heldische Sicht und Froher Glaube" (1942).
  • "Aus einem wahrhaften Leben" (1943).

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Elisàr von Kupffer, 1872–1942". Sanctuarium Artis Elisarion. Retrieved 5 January 2018.

Further reading

  • Fabio Ricci: Ritter, Tod und Eros: Die Kunst Elisàr von Kupffers (1872-1942) (2007) basic scientific work about E. von Kupffer, 80 reproductions (ISBN 978-3-412-20064-0)
  • Cecile Beurdeley (Trans.: M. Taylor). L'Amour bleu (1978) (Reproduces many examples of Kupffer's murals at Locarno). ISBN 0-8478-0129-2
  • Graziano Mandozzi. Elisarion : un santuario per il Clarismo (1996) ISBN 88-900159-0-X
  • Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II. Routledge; London. 2002. ISBN 0-415-15983-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
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