Serendipity - The Search for Savino by Brendan Connell and Forrest Aguirre



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The Search for Savino
by Brendan Connell and Forrest Aguirre



I


My search for Savino began in 1926, while visiting famous art collector and critic Sir Timothy Broughton. He was a man of ample means. His taste was highly cultivated. Night or day, a bottle of chilled champagne, always quality stuff, was by his side, and for this reason, no less than the pleasure of his conversation, I was apt to call on him frequently.

One day our conversation turned to the subject of great artists who never got their just deserts. I mentioned Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Henry van de Velde both as being artists which I thought fell into this rank, both being absurdly neglected considering their skill and the impact they had.

Sir Broughton puffed at his cigar and shook his head knowingly.

"Have you ever heard of Savino?" he asked, with a rather indescribable look in his eyes, something like a magician might have when imparting a secret formula.

I thought for a moment, gently sipping my champagne, and then informed him, with some slight embarrassment, that I had not heard of Savino. He rose gravely from his seat and requested me to follow him into his study, which I did with much curiosity. When we reached the room, he pointed to a quadro hanging from the wall. It was obviously a relatively recent acquisition, because I had been in the room several times before and never noticed it—and though not in any way loud, it was a very noticeable bit of work. It was a strange stretched canvas, painted all in blue, a damn haunting shade of the colour, a sort of gloaming tint, full of melancholy. The depiction itself was of a rhinoceros, standing in the midst of a forest of strange letters and symbols. I could not make head or tail of it, but was sure that it was full of some deep meaning, possibly sinister, and I had great trouble dragging my eyes from the piece.

"Is this his work?" I asked, with some emotion.

"Yes. That is Savino. Back of Anthony Wexler you're looking at now."

I did not know what to reply. Sir Broughton calmly lit his pipe and pointed to a stack of papers on his writing table.

"Take a look," he said. "It is a catalogue I'm working on—For Sotheby's and all that sort of thing."

I took up a sheet and read:

Item:

The Property of a Gentleman



FOR CHARON: Two Confederate American gold coins, one obverse on the left eye, one reverse on the right, tattooed on the eyelids of retired Confederate Colonel Josiah Stoat, Georgia, United States of America. An inscription in black beneath the left coin reads 'For Charon', inks of ochre and cadmium

45mm x 13mm and 44mm x 12mm

Item:

From the collection of Prince Georg Lubomirski, Formerly deposited in the Museum at Lemberg, Poland


THE SPICE RIVER: A single dhow, piloted by a richly-dressed oriental merchant (actually a portrait of the client Xhien Xo Pyang) slowly floats down a languid river. The river's water is stained with the hues of cinnamon, cardamom, anise, turmeric, coriander, powdered ginger and peppercorns, ink of charcoal and mixed spice ink concentrates, right eyelid of the merchant Xhien Xo Pyang.

39mm x 10mm

Item:

The Property of a Gentleman


HIS LOVER'S EYES: A collage of twenty-three irises and pupils, each image taken from the body of the original. Each eye reflects the face of the client—the much-feared and renowned rapist and serial killer Renault DuChampe—at various ages. Behind this montage is a single large iris of deep brown: that of DuChamp's un-named hangman, manganese based salt inks, left eyelid

39mm x 10mm

Item:

The Property of the late Madame Winifred de Rothschild

COPY OF MOORE'S THE EPICUREAN, WITH SEVERAL PAGES SKETCHED ON BY ENZIO SAVINO, in one volume printed by A. & R. Spottiswood, New Street Square 1832, bound in leather with gold lettering on spine, slight foxing



List of pages on which these drawings appear:

a vi, recto: Slight study of one fat gentleman, black chalk

p. 3: Uncomplimentary study of Ferdinand Keller, black chalk

p. 164: Study of Zeus, black chalk, touched in pen and ink

Three loose pages of blank paper inserted at this place

p. 270: Study after a porphyry sculpture of the emperor Heliogabalus, black chalk

End page:
Study of Prometheus saved by Hercules, black chalk, touched in pen and ink

Item:

The Property of Mrs. Lisa Stewart, of San Francisco


ROMNISOVIC'S SUPERNOVA; RIGHT EYELID: White stars superimposed on a light blue grid over a black background. The single brightest star is named for the client, Sergei Romnisovic, who discovered it in the midst of much public controversy over his private life and heretical religious beliefs, charcoal and rye inks

38mm x 10mm

Item:

The Property of Mrs. Lisa Stewart, of San Francisco



ROMNISOVIC'S SUPERNOVA; LEFT EYELID: Block-scripted letters and numbers listing information regarding the star:





RA (1900): 15 41 47.2

DECL (1900): +48 32 4

MAG (A): -4.27




inks of charcoal and soot

38mm x 10mm


II


His victims, his lovers, his comrades, whores he picked from the street and boozing oafs he snatched from the bars: drawn back to his chambers: his dark Berlin studio in that third phase of his career.

At first he used nightshade, hypnoticon, the Solanum manicon described by Dioscorides, a drachme intermixed with wine. But the results were twice fatal, and getting rid of corpses was awkward business. He toyed with belladonna, but found it too potent: the victims often sleepy for forty hours and more. So he settled for the fabulous sleeping apple: a concoction made from opium, mandrake, juice of hemlock, the seeds of henbane and a touch of musk. This he rolled into codling sized balls—He need simply give one to his guest and ask her/him to sniff it, a marvelous incense, which was attractive and often smelt, and eyes gently closed and them bound in unbreakable chains of sleep. Unclothed, naked and resting on their stomachs, and the canvas was ripe:

With water intermixed with salt ammonide, quicklime and the oil of galls, he went to work: painting away with rapid, predatory strokes: The designs initially appeared white, but after drying disappeared altogether from sight, the victim awaking with only a rather red and sore region, mere traces: Apply to the skin a mixture of litharge, vinegar and salt and they would reappear, even if a hundred years might expire. (Note Enzio Savino's last will and testament and the instructions held therein.)

III


[From an interview with Graham Lynch, cousin of Anthony Wexler]

We had received a letter from Tony regarding the museum piece and the commission Enzio was to receive from Frau von Bekken, which effectively solidified the couple's financial base for life. A few weeks later, Tony sent us the following:



'Dearest Cousins, Berlin, September 3, 1898



Enzio completed his commission work a week ago—a startling composition depicting the mythical hunter Cibembe and his dog cresting the Usagara mountains just east of the Uhehe region. The Colonial Arts Commission felt strongly that, while Chief Bembele was clearly the source of the ill-fated Mele Mele uprising, his bravery warranted recognition. Thus Enzio was hired to etch this African icon of strength and determination over Bembele's eternally-closed eyelids. His head remains on display at the Berlin National Museum . . . '

Their future looked quite bright and we hoped that Enzio might now be able to spend more time with his ailing lover (Tony passed on only two years later), but this was not to be the case. Tony's next letter arrived two weeks later:

 

'My Dear Graham and family, Berlin, August 8, 1898



Enzio's behaviour has grown odd, to say the least. While I trust his loyalty and love for me—which he expresses nightly—I worry for his mind.

Two nights ago, after staying out considerably later than is usual, he returned home only to wake in the middle of the night crying, "I've done it, Tony! I've fixed that bitch for death! I've fixed her right up!" I have no doubt something is wrong with his state of mental health . . . '

Of course neither Tony nor I could interpret Enzio's meaning. Only

on Frau von Bekken's death, several months later, did we begin to understand what Enzio had done.

IV


[Extracted from The Avantguard Artists of the Nineteenth Century, by W. B. Fry, London, William Heinmann, 1924]

Enzio Savino (1864-1901)


Though certainly not the most successful, if success can be measured in terms of conventional fame, or monetary gain, Enzio Savino was possibly the most influential painter of the symbolist movement, surpassing even Redon and Moreau in influence amongst his fellow artists, and prestige amongst the culturally literate.

Born in Possagno, near Treviso, the son of a house painter, he was at a young age seduced by the German artist Ferdinand Keller, and moved with him to Paris in 1880, where he published his first series of lithographs Concerto Campestre, at the age of eighteen—a project that was undoubtedly financed by the purse of the older man.

Though not attending, he spent much of his time at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he made friends with Gerôme, by whom he was much admired, though to an equal degree feared. Carolus-Duran and Alexandre Cabanel, through uncontrollable jealousy and hate, had a petition passed around to ban Savino from the precincts of the school. The document stated that the young Italian was an evil influence on the other students and that his presence prevented them from going about their work. Savino slapped Cabanel in public and the latter challenged him to a duel. Savino, caring more for vengeance than honour, pulled out a stiletto and stabbed the teacher on the spot, though as luck would have it not mortally wounding him. After spending three months in jail, the young man was released, due to the influential intervention of Keller, who was still living in a nimbus of liquorice fascination.

His early work is vigorous and naturalistic (cf. The Tree of the Hanged, Bayerisches National Museum, Munich, 1883), but later his style became solemn and flushed with mythological influence, his subject matter for the most part being gleaned from ancient Egyptian and Greek lore. In 1884, he took part in the Salon des Indépendants, with high expectations of success. Unfortunately his work went largely unnoticed and was only praised by a few fellow artists. Enraged and frustrated, he tore his studio apart and left Paris. He was in debt to numerous persons, and involved in countless affairs of the heart. Needless to say, his sudden disappearance caused a great stir, and not a few friends to become enemies.

Many regarded him more in the light of a low adventurer than a skilled artist, and it must be said that his actions did much to form opinion in this wise. Edmond de Goncourt wrote: "He had the quasi savagery of all southern natures."

For nearly two years he was unheard of, and that period of his life is clouded in an almost resinous mystery. In Paris his name was heaped with ridicule, and rumours abounded. Some said that he had been seen in London, promenading between Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner; others claimed that he was in Germany, living at the expense of an immensely wealthy Baroness. Whatever the case, the year 1886 saw him reappear in Rome, a greatly changed man.

When he had left Paris, his personality was that of a gifted guttersnipe. When arrived in Rome, he did so as a man of culture—not subdued, for his nature was still as firey as ever—but one with greater knowledge, ability and inner strength.

He had acquired money. Not a great deal, but enough to dress like a gentleman and open up a studio on the Corso Magenta. In 1887 he exhibited at the Salon della Arte Metafisica, where he created a major stir with his Night of Cain (Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfort). This grand canvas was his first major work and was hailed as a masterpiece. Wrote Adolfo de Carolis: "With that [Night of Cain] he showed us the path. He demonstrated how enormous difficulties might be cleared away with ease and made many great painters of the day tremble in despair [fearing] that they would lose the world's esteem."

That same year he produced over ninety canvases, including a number of works which today are regarded as some of his finest creations (e.g. Arte Etiopica, Museum of Art, Cleveland; Minotaur, Louvre, Paris; Tribute to Exechia, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Colon).

V


[Excerpts from a police interview with mortician Gustave Schnittke by Konstable Hermann Bergen]



KB: . . . and tell me what happened at the wake.

GS: Well, if you're concerned about the condition of his honour, the Chancellor von Bekken, you would be better served asking Herr Doctor Ormand regarding the circumstances under which . . .

KB: The doctor is in custody, Herr Schnittke. We will question him soon. For now we need to hear your account of events.

GS: I see. (pause) As you know, Frau von Bekken came to our facility early Wednesday morning.

KB: She visited?

GS: No, she was deceased. (pause) Doktor Ormand, who is, as you know, the family physician, brought in the body with the help of two attendants, both of whom left immediately following the completion of their grim delivery.

KB: Describe these two men.

GS: I do not know whether they were men or women. They were covered in black hoods and robes the way Italian body porters dress.

KB: They were Italian, you say?

GS: I could not see, due to the masks. They did not speak. They did not even grunt—Frau von Bekken was slight of frame as it is, and with the soul gone out of her . . .

KB: You are accusing the good Frau of being soul-less, Herr Schnittke?

GS: She was dead, of course she was soul-less.

KB: This is what you mean?

GS: I have said so. May I continue?

KB: Please.

GS: Thank you. The family began to arrive about ten minutes later.

KB: And who was in attendance?

GS: I was getting to that, Konstable.

KB: Continue, Please.

GS: Frau von Bekken's daughter, Emilie, was the first to arrive. She was accompanied by her fiancée, Wilhelm von Offenbach.

KB: Von Offenbach?

GS: From a little-known family, at least in the Chancellor's circle. A good enough lad—blonde, green eyed, just like his fiancée . . .

KB: Continue.

GS: Yes. Not long after . . .

KB: How long?

GS: Approximately four and a half minutes after Emilie and von Offenbach arrived, the Chancellor walked in with his military advisor, General Graf von Miltke, and the Reverend Helmuth Spier. The Reverend and the General created quite a stir when they entered the room, spewing invectives at one another right behind the poor Chancellor's back.

KB: Poor Chancellor? Is money an issue in this statement?

GS: (Pause) The Chancellor was very sad, sir, as you can imagine one would be after losing one's spouse.

KB: Was he weeping?

GS: Freely.

KB: That is odd. I must make a note of it. Carry on.

GS: Emilie, her fiancée and Doktor Ormand . . .

KB: You speak in familiar terms of "Emilie".

GS: I am an old family friend. I have known the good lady since she was a baby.

KB: Noted. We will speak of this later. Carry on.

GS: As I was saying, Emilie, von Offenbach and the doctor succeeded in shushing the bickering attendants. The Chancellor trudged over to the table on which his wife's body lay. He leaned down, tears in his eyes, to kiss her lips one last time. Suddenly, he stopped. A slight grunt escaped his throat, then his eyes widened as if a hammer of revelation had been brought down upon his skull . . .

KB: Spare us the dramatics.

GS: Er. (Pause) The Chancellor looked quite surprised, then collapsed on the floor screaming "Mein Gott! It's true! Ah, hellfire, it is true! Damn my soul, Spier, it's true!" Doktor Ormand ran and knelt by the Chancellor, trying to calm him, as Reverend Spier, looking rather puzzled, stooped down to look at the corpse's forehead.

KB: And what did he see, Herr Schnittke?

GS: The same thing I saw: words.

KB: Words. And what did these words say, Herr Schnittke?

GS: They said "Here lies Salome, dreaming. The head in the museum her constant companion, wed for eternity in darkest hell. Mele Mele continues on the shores of darkness."

KB: And?

GS: Spier's reaction took us all by surprise. He stomped his feet about either side of the prone Chancellor, straddling him with his holy vestments, screaming at him "I told you so, von Bekken, I warned you! Since you were barely off your mother's tits, I warned you! 'Stay away from her' I said, and 'you have no interests in Africa'. But you persisted and now you have abetted your lusty Frau's eternal condemnation. Herod! HEROD!" he boomed as the chancellor lay there muttering and crying. His mind was quite gone by then, you know, and . . .

KB: The doctor will assess the Chancellor's condition, thank you. What of Marie Elter?

GS: Well, just as quickly as Spier's tirade had begun, it stopped, as did the Chancellor's crying—I suppose he was experiencing a moment of lucidity as some do while . . .

KB: Elter, please.

GS: Yes. As I said, all noise in the room ceased at once as Marie Elter entered the room, her boy slave in tow. Even her youthful exploits could not . . .

KB: We are all aware of Frau Elter's youth, Herr Schnittke. Though it is a wonder that her sister could have married so prestigious a man as the Chancellor, given all the controversy. In any case, continue.

GS: So, the Chancellor's sister-in-law entered the room with a chain in her hand. Attached to the other end of the chain was a diamond-studded collar which was, in turn, clasped around the neck of her boy-slave, Ntende Manyuko. It was ridiculous: The chancellor on the floor between Ormand and Spier, Emilie and von Offenbach keeping General von Miltke from attacking the Reverend with his riding crop—all this chaos and in walks Marie Elter with a chained, half-naked black savage in a diamond collar.

KB: And what did you do next?

GS: We all stared at Ntende Manyuko. The diamonds were brilliant against his ebony skin, like stars on night. The only other clothing he had on was a white loincloth.

KB: And where does Ntende Manhuko (sic) come from, pray tell?

GS: Uhehe.

KB: Uhehe? Hmm. Very suspicious, that one . . .



VI


[A few documents written by Savino to Wexler during his last months]



[Postcard]

Rome December 29, 1900

Desperate. Send money!



[Letter]



Rome January 10, 1901



Oh, you needn't be that way about it. I am absolutely miserable and you should have a little sympathy. If I say I need money, you can be damned well sure I do. As you know, the lawyers have a lean on my work and I cannot even set my hands on my past paintings, and I cannot set my hand to new projects for lack of funds. I need a new studio, paints, brushes, all sorts of things—or give me but a stick of charcoal and a bit of cloth and I will do you something for £1. Honesty my friend, things are getting to the edge. Do you know that I will be evicted from this room in a week? Well, it is true. So I tell you plainly: Hurry up and get me something SUBSTANTIAL to set myself right. Seriously.

E.



[Postcard]

Rome February 1, 1901

I beg you to send me 2£. Sick and miserable.

[Postcard]

Rome February 8, 1901

Money. Money. Money.

(Isn't the picture on the front of this simply absurd!)



X


"Art-for-Art's-sake is no safe metier, not even for a prodigy such as he who under this, my stylus, bows in subjection. I embed in him, as my student again, the seeds of the fruition of my greatness, the scorpion's sting of stale vanity, of glory come and gone. May his fame, once invisible, again be manifest to those who never knew 'The Painter of Eyes'."


Tattooed to the back of Enzio Savino.

Story Copyright © 2007 by Brendan Connell and Forrest Aguirre. All rights reserved.
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About the author

Brendan Connell writes about monks, tongues and films, often on his blog.

Forrest Aguirre won the World Fantasy Award for his editing of Leviathan 3. His novel, Swans over the Moon, is available from Wheatland Press





The Search for Savino was originally published in Neotrope.




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