Frühlingsweben
Zeichnung von Ernst H. Graeser
| Ernst Heinrich Graeser (1884-1944), der jüngste der drei Gräserbrüder, studierte Malerei in München und Stuttgart. Zwischen 1903 und1911 lebte er immer wieder, für länger oder kürzer, bei seinen Brüdern auf dem Monte Verità von Ascona. Im Winter 1906/7 machte er in Locarno eine Ausstellungseiner Gemälde. Zu den Käufern seiner Bilder zählte auch Hermann Hesse. Ernst Heinrich, der später ein Anhänger von Rudolf Steiner wurde, stand damals unterdem Einfluss von Karl und Gusto. Dies belegen u. a. die Erinnerungen des ehemaligen Erzherzogs Leopold von Toskana, später Leopold Wölfling genannt, derselbst zeitweise ein „Naturmensch“ bei den Gräsers in Ascona gewesen war. Wölfling nennt die Gräsers in seinem Buch nicht beim Namen, er nennt sie„Vögel“, wohl in Anlehnung an „Wandervögel“. Nach den beiden „Vögeln“ Karl und Gusto ist für ihn Ernst „Vögel the Third“. | Ernst
Heinrich Graeser (1884-1944), the youngest of the three
Gräser brothers, studied painting in Munich and Stuttgart.
Between 1903 and 1911 he repeatedly lived, for longer or
shorter periods, with his brothers on Monte Verità in
Ascona. In the winter of 1906/7 he held an exhibition of his
paintings in Locarno. Hermann Hesse was one of the buyers of
his paintings. Ernst Heinrich, who later became a follower
of Rudolf Steiner, was then under the influence of Karl and
Gusto. This is evidenced by the memoirs of the former
Archduke Leopold of Tuscany, later called Leopold Wölfling,
who himself had been a "nature person" at times with the
Gräsers in Ascona. Wölfling does not call the Gräsers by
name in his book, he calls them "Vögel" (birds), probably in
reference to "Wandervögel" (migratory birds or rather
excursionists). After the two "birds" Karl and Gusto, Ernst
is for him "Vögel the Third". |
Vögel the Third
by Leopold Wölfling
To rid the world of sex! This
had been the battle cry of each Vögel [Gräser] in turn. But as I
listened to its exposition by Vögel the Third [Ernst Gräser], I was
considerably more impressed by the possible sanity of this
back-to-natue creed than when its tenets were shrieked at me in the
hysterical vaporings of his unbalanced brothers and sister-in-law.
According to this bright young
man, the most Beautiful Thing in life, if rightly understood, was Sex.
But through the degeneracy and perversion of modern civilized ideas,
this Beautiful Thing had been degraded until its Beauty was no longer
recognizable. It throve as a festering canker in the lives of men and
women.
Our young friend held that
clothes were an abomination because they created in us an unhealthy
curiosity and element of mystery which resulted in the morbid
perversion of our natural sex instincts. (193) …
„What is more beautiful than
the nude human form?“ argued Vögel the Third. „Take those old-lady
Philistines of the past who, driven by moral indignation to wrap their
shawls round what they conceived to be indecent statues of nude
figures. What was the result of the so-called pious act? Merely to
increase the evil of lasciviousness which they
thought to hide. At Ascona we believe clothing to be a fetish
wich destroys healthy human passion, degrading it to vice.“
To me this seemed rather a
good line of talk, and the young man gradually interested me more and
more in his theories. I found this companionship so stimulating that I
was quite sorry when, after making himself a very unobtrusive member
of our household for nearly a moth, he returned to Ascona. …
Somehow I bamboozled myself
into the belief that this back-to-nature cult also included serious
thinkers like Vögel the Third, and if these more sanely-balanced
members of the colony were really in earnest, I began to feel that it
would be a highly diverting adventure to live among them for a while
and observe at first-hand how their no-clothes experiment worked out.
(194).
Of the Moonlight Revels, I
was, of course, a distinctly interested spectator, for I felt that I
could now test how far the theories on Sex, so eloquently propounded
by Vögel the Third, were sound. What this apparently earnest student
of the problem had said in affect was that sex evils would vanish if
men and women could but grow accustomed to looking on one another
naked without feeling ashamed.
„Why, if confronted by an
unknown male, should a naked woman at once feel guilty and seek to
cover herself up, if not to run away and hide?“ had been one of the
conundrums this young man had thrust at me, and he had laughed me to
scorn when for answer I said: „ A woman in such circumstances seeks to
hide herself from a man for the same reason as she screams in terror
whenever she sees a mouse. A self-protective instinct, given to her at
the Creation, compels her to act in this way.“ (201)
„How do you know what Woman
felt towards Man at the Creation?“ he had scoffed. “I contend that her
self-protective instinct, as you call it, was not with her at the
start, but has been imposed on her by a trick of the devil in inducing
her to wear clothes. This so-called instinct would never have been if
only through the ages men and women had faced each other fairly and
squarely in a state of simple nature rather than with covered bodies
in mock modesty and shame.“
Here, then, at these Moonlight
Revels I could now see if this strange theorist were right. Alas! As I
looked on, I could only decide that he was most hopelessly wrong. To
the strains of reed-like gipsy music, borrowed from Hungary and not
with a certain allure itself, never had I seen so unalluring a sight
as this set of thin-limbed men and knock-kneed women, now gyrating
about this open field stark naked in the moonlight. They imagined that
they danced, but truly, there was neither rhythm nor reason about
their dancing at all. They contorted themselves this way and that.
Their gestures, far from being beautiful, seemed ugly, formless, and
insane. (201)
My ultimate conclusion about
this mad spectacle was that, let Vögel the Third argue as he would,
this uncovering of the human body by no means made for Sex-innocence.
I admit that through having lived together in the nude, cheek by jowl,
for so long, these strange human madcaps seemed now able to look on
one another without the slightest Sex-thrill. But since many of them
wore spectacles and pince-nez, even though they were undressed, what
else could you expect?
Still, here and there, one
caught glimpses of human forms less anaemic in energy because they
were more athletic in build. But what young Vögel mistook in the
latter for Sex-innocence was in reality Sex-apathy, a state contrary
to Nature, which inflicts terrible punishment on all who fall into it.
Never shall I forget the lustreless eyes with which these more
vigorous men and women of this back-to-nature colony regarded one
another as, uttering silly, raucous cries, they capered about in the
moonlight. In their efforts to get back to Nature, they had run away
from her altogether.
To me, the most repellent part
of their capers was that each one of the caperers seemed to enjoy
himself best when capering alone. Each seemed to like best to indulge
in solo dances. Each appeared positively to recoil from touching
another. Comradeship or any other human feeling between these people,
apart from spleen and jealousy, was dead. Their state of nudity had
killed it. In a word, they were megalomaniacs. Instead of living for
each other, they lived simply for themselves. (202)
After a week of sheer misery at the back-to-nature colony I returned with my wife to Zug. (204)
