Gilbert Clavel

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Gilbert Clavel (born May 29, 1883 in Kleinhüningen ; † September 6, 1927 in Basel ) was active in the early futurist movement . He devoted himself to the visual and performing arts as well as writing. From 1919 he had a centuries-old ruined watchtower and the adjoining rock in Positano, southern Italy, converted into a total work of art , which Siegfried Kracauer described in 1925 in the text Felsenwahn in Positano .

Life

Gilbert Clavel was the middle of the three sons of the silk dyer Alexander Clavel-Merian and Emilie Maria Clavel-Merian (the other two were René Clavel and Alexander Clavel-Respinger ) and belonged to a wealthy industrial family in Basel. As a result of tuberculosis and an accident in childhood, he developed a severe curvature of the spine and suffered all his life physically and mentally from his weak constitution. After school he attended lectures in art history, philosophy and Egyptology at the University of Basel and went - also for medical reasons - on extensive journeys in southern Europe (Ticino, Italy) and in North Africa (Algeria, Egypt). In 1907, together with Carl Albrecht Bernoulli, he founded the Central European Monthly Font , designed by Carl Burckhardt . In 1910 he settled in Capri and Anacapri , where he led a secluded life and developed art as well as existential theories that were influenced by the late fin de siècle .

Gilbert Clavel (1883–1927), art historian existentialist, visionary. Grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery, Basel
Grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery , Basel

From 1913 on, Clavel speculated about a “universal memoria”, that is, an all-encompassing memory that never lost anything that the human eye had ever seen or thought up by the human mind. This idea shaped his novel Un Istituto per Suicidi ("An Institute for Suicides "), published in 1917 , in which the first-person narrator describes an institution that offers three means of killing oneself in a hallucinating state: drinking, lust and pantopon (an opium preparation). Death is not a taboo and is considered a “change of the center”. In the lyrical essay Espressioni d'Egitto , published in 1920 , the trip to Egypt with his father nine years earlier and the encounter with ancient Egyptian art were reflected. In this text, Clavel celebrated the human being and human creativity as the highest form of existence, which is immortal and will return forever.

During the First World War, the encounter with the Ballets Russes and the Italian futurists , from whom he met the painter Fortunato in 1917 and 1918 , became a decisive experience that allowed Clavel to break with tradition and radically modernize his aesthetic values Depero closely linked.

Depero described Clavel as follows:

“Un signore piccolo, gobbo, con naso rettilineo come uno squadretto, con denti d'oro e scarpette femminili, dalle risate vitree e nasali. Un uomo di nervi e volontà, dotato d'una cultura superiore. Professore di storia egizia, indagatore ed osservatore con sensibilità d'artista, scrittore, amante del popolo, del verso, della metafisica […] Compositore di liriche, what anche un gaudente e un sofferente. "

“A little gentleman, hunchbacked, with a straight nose cut like a square, with gold teeth and feminine low shoes, a glassy, ​​nasal laugh. A man full of strength and will, of superior sophistication. Professor of Egyptian history, researcher and observer with the sensitivity of an artist, writer, friend of the people, lover of verse and metaphysics. This poetry author was both a bon vivant and a sufferer. "

Depero illustrated Un Istituto per Suicidi and portrayed Clavel in several pictures. Both wanted to create “plastic theater” as a new art form from a clear language of forms, colors and light, music and movement. Her fairy tale play Balli Plastici was premiered on May 14, 1918 in the Teatro dei Piccoli in Rome . In an alternation between concrete narrative strands and abstract moments, wooden puppets mimic in five acts to the music of Alfredo Casella , Gerald Tyrwhitt , Béla Bartók and Francesco Malipiero . Clavel, who saw himself as the initiator and sponsor of the Balli Plastici , which was enthusiastically received in Rome, tried in vain to show the work in Paris, Naples and Switzerland. He saw himself as part of the futuristic renewal of art and society and wrote essays on art theory.

The contact with Depero ended after the intensive cooperation in 1918. From then on, Clavel devoted himself entirely to the renovation and expansion of a former watchtower in Positano . Clavel had already acquired the tower in 1909, but it was not until 1917 that the property was rounded off on the rock on which the tower stands that allowed it to be redesigned according to his ideas. Clavel, who is also next to Depero Pablo Picasso , Jean Cocteau , Enrico Prampolini and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti had met in person, died in 1927 during a stay in Basel at a pleurisy .

The tower in Positano

The bay of Positano with the striking tower on the ledge in the background.

The former watchtower in Positano, which Gilbert Clavel had expanded, is known by different names: Torre Clavel, Castel Clavel, Torre di Fornillo, Torre di Positano . It is also called the “ Saracen Tower ”, but it is not of medieval origin, as one might believe, but dates back to the tenure of the Spanish viceroy of Naples Pedro Álvarez de Toledo in the 16th century. One of dozens along the Amalfi Coast , it served like its counterparts to protect against attack from the sea before it lost its purpose and was left to decay. The tower was in ruins and Clavel was only able to move in permanently in 1920, after extensive renovation work. The work on the tower, which is easy to understand thanks to the lively correspondence with his brother René, kept him busy until his death. All rooms including their furniture were individually designed by him down to the last detail and given their own names such as “Malterahaus”, “Sirenenzimmer”, “Diamantzimmer”, “Lietzhaus”. Clavel's structural activity also involved the rock into which he drove underground caverns and corridors over a hundred meters long. A grotto discovered during construction was connected directly to the sea via a 35-meter-long spiral corridor and only made accessible from there. Equipped with an organ, it was supposed to serve as a concert hall, but it collapsed.

The assessment of the Tower of Positano goes beyond the aspect of a purely architectural achievement in the direction of a total work of art . Gilbert Clavel, who instead of plan drawings used a dowsing rod and compass to determine the structural shape and explosives to hollow out the rock, saw a metaphysical dynamic at work in his work: “When I arch, I always have the feeling of air spaces with theirs To capture energies, in whose condensation something spiritual then explodes. ” Siegfried Kracauer , deeply impressed by a visit, wrote in his text Felsenwahn in Positano (1925):“ Magic sweeps the place. He is the enclave of lost powers that have found refuge in the ancient landscape and now appear in person. ”The frail body from which Clavel suffered and the confrontation with this contradiction in his self-image (“ I am often a bit strange, that is to ascribe to the struggle inside me: body against mind. If I were healthy, I would be a giant. ”) found a correspondence in the rock and in its violent - and thus strongly based on futuristic models - formation through explosives. The grotto served the homosexual Clavel as a symbol of the sex and the gender order in general: “The floor plan should later show a testicle seen in the dissection. In this basic form I petrify - without anyone noticing - what nature has stolen from me of the most living things. ”In a letter to Carl Albrecht Bernoulli (1927), Clavel spoke of his“ Bachofen Egg Room ”.

After Gilbert Clavel's death, the tower passed into the possession of René Clavel, who sold it in 1955. Today it is rented out as a holiday residence.

Works

  • Gilbert Clavel, with illustrations by Fortunato Depero, translated from the German by Italo Tavolato: Un Istituto per Suicidi . Bernardo Lux, Rome 1917.
  • Gilbert Clavel, with the help of Ruth Waldstetter, edited by Helene Boeringer, vignettes by Emil Lüthy: My area . Schwabe, Basel 1930.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quotation from noveporte.it ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.noveporte.it
  2. ↑ a b quote from engeler.de
  3. ↑ a b c Quote from g26.ch ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.g26.ch
personal data
SURNAME Clavel, Gilbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss futurist
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Kleinhüningen
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 1927
Place of death Basel