0 Cop CAPRI 25 - Caesar Augustus

millenni al tormento del ferro di boscaioli
e abili intagliatori» sottolinea lo
storico dell’arte Giorgio Pellegrini, che
ha ricostruito l’avventura artistica di
Paule in Sardegna. Un’avventura che vede
il pittore trasformare la mansarda in
un laboratorio xilografico, dove realizza
decine e decine di incisioni dedicate alla
vita rurale della Barbagia. Opere in grado
di interpretare il carattere schivo e ▼
DA “DIONISO TRA LE ISOLE” - LA CONCHIGLIA ED.
UNEXPECTED VISION
For about forty years he never
left Capri, except for occasional
forays into Sardinia. We can
almost still hear him recounting
in his sonorous voice his first
experience of the bewitching
island, when he spent several
years living in Capri’s grottos, in
intimate contact, so to speak,
with the secret of its beauty.
Confronted with the life of this
extraordinary man, we can only
wonder if many of the other
Un segno vigoroso
caratterizza
la raffigurazione
del pino
e dei Faraglioni
nelle due xilografie
di Paule.
Paule’s vigorous style
characterized the pine
tree and the Faraglioni
depicted in these
two wood engravings.
HANS THE CAVEMAN
by LUDOVICO PRATESI
Hans Paule was one of the most
original foreign artists
to convey the atmosphere
of Capri through colour
Pictor Spelaeus, or cave painter. That
was the nickname given to him by the
writer Edwin Cerio of Capri, struck by
his decidedly eccentric habits. He lived in a
grotto overlooking the sea, slept on the
ground, survived on limpets and sea urchins,
washed in a cache of rainwater in a basin
carved out of the rocks and drank the drops of
water that dripped from a stalactite. This way
of life, however, had not stopped Paule from
frequenting the crème de la crème of society
that spent time on Capri in the early decades
of the last century: a pleasure-loving,
cosmopolitan milieu in which the fashionable
set mingled with intellectuals, aristocrats in
decline and rising literary stars.
In those days you might meet Marquise
Casati and Count Fersen, Alberto Moravia
and Curzio Malaparte, or Axel Munthe and
Fortunato Depero at one of the cafés in the
Piazzetta, or in one of the many villas
immersed in greenery. Then suddenly, there
he would be, Hans Paule, with his small round
glasses, tawny beard, intense gaze, checked
shirt and Franciscan sandals. No need to ask
who he was: the whole island knew him.
At the beginning of the twentieth century he
arrived on Capri from Vienna – where he was
born in 1879 – to join an artist,
the German painter Karl
Wilhelm Diefenbach, whom he
had met in the Hapsburg
capital when he was a young
art student studying drawing at
the Academy of Fine Arts. Like
Diefenbach, Paule saw the
island as a primordial
artists on Capri were able to
achieve such a manifest
harmony between the life they
led and the works of art they
created. The eternal
contradiction, the divergence
between the life of struggle of
an often outstanding artist and
the wealth of his art, did not
apply to Paule. Gnarled, like his
body, were the woodcuts that
he showed you – he used to
say, “I am an oak from here, or
a rock.” They were rendered
striking through the carefully
balanced use of a few colours
and, full of imagination, evoked
fairytales and classical
mythology. That’s why his art
performed the miracle of
summoningupthemost
unexpected visions.
Ettore Settanni
From Miti, uomini e donne
di Capri
environment, an arcadia where one could still
live in intimate contact with nature. It was a
philosophy that Hans shared with Karl, a
devotee of strict naturism that had landed him in
a fair amount of trouble back home. On Capri,
however, the man with the ecstatic gaze, who
dressed in a white tunic, always went barefoot
and wore his hair shoulder-length, had found
his ideal setting. “I would be content with Capri
for the rest of my life, with its rugged cliffs that I
adore, its tremendous, magnificent sea – even
though, to tell the truth, I’m a martyr of sorts,
boycotted by my countrymen, who attack me
shamefully whenever they come here, accusing
me of immorality and godlessness.” So said
Diefenbach, an artist who conducted himself
rather like the Nazarenes, the group of German
painters who settled in Rome at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, living in a monastery
and wandering about the city dressed like Jesus
Christ. Unlike the Nazarenes, however,
Diefenbach’s painting was not inspired by the
aesthetic ideals of Fra’ Angelico or Raphael. Far
from it. In Diefenbach’s works, steeped in an
obscure, telluric symbolism, the rocks and cliffs
of Capri are transformed into a world of sinister
visions, with their grottos lit by sudden flares of
light and their gloomy seascapes.
But let us return to the young Paule, who had
just moved to turn-of-the-century Capri, and
spent his days drawing views of his beloved
island. His touch was different from Karl’s. No
Symbolist visions or dramatic atmospheres, but
bold, sharp lines inspired by Expressionism. An
art Hans promoted in his own way, at the tables
of Zum Kater Hiddigeigei, the haunt of the
island’s intellectuals. His self-promotion brought
excellent results, and in just one day he
managed to sell a whole portfolio
of drawings. Paule was fortunate
as well in his encounters with the
island’s more enlightened
inhabitants, with whom he struck
up close friendships. The first
being Gilbert Clavel, the witty
and cosmopolitan homosexual
aesthete, whom Paule had
actually met at the café.
“Suddenly, from which direction I
couldn’t tell, someone called my
name: Clavel. And a bearded
face came towards me,” Gilbert
wrote in his diary. “That’s how I met
Paule. We had a lot to talk about; in
fact, our conversation went on till
next morning.” Those happy times
were not to last, however; in 1915
the painter was interned on Sardinia
by order of the government, and had
to abandon Capri for several years.
From Capri to Tonara
From one island to another,
Hans’s luck took a turn for the
better. He settled in the heart
▼
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