Artists - Part 5

 Sascha Schneider

At the beginning of the 20th century, German painter Sascha Schneider (1870-1927) was one of the most well-known artists.  A generation later he was relegated to obscurity.

In 1903, Schneider (right) met best-selling German author Karl May (left).  May wrote adventure stories set in foreign lands, including the American Wild West.  May's books sold over 200 million copies worldwide.  Schneider provided the cover art for many of May's books.

Schneider was gay, and a large number of his works feature nude men.  This early work is The Anarchist, 1894.  In those days anarchists were viewed as bomb-throwers, but portraying the bomb-thrower as naked seems to have been Schneider's idea.

In addition to featuring naked men, many of Schneider's works have a darker side.  This is another early work, Gefühl der Abhängigkeit (Feeling of Dependence), 1894.

This is called Hypnosis.  To us it looks like a vision of evil, but astonishingly, the author of a 1902 instruction manual on hypnosis used it as an illustration, writing, "The painting by Sascha Schneider illustrates the power of hypnosis in a captivating artistic form."  At the time, mediums, seances, and other "spiritualist" practices were very popular, and this fit right in.

Much of Schneider's work has a religious aspect, like Es ist vollbracht (It is finished), 1895.  But even so, the painting manages to include a naked man, here as the devil.

Here is the cover of Karl May's book Am Rio de la Plata (On the Rio de la Plata), 1904.

This is the cover of Karl May's book Durchs Wilde Kurdistan (Through Wild Kurdistan), 1904.

This is the cover of the first in a popular series of books by Karl May, Winnetou I, 1904.  The title character, Winnetou, was an Apache warrior in the American Old West, and clearly neither of these figures is an Apache.  For that matter, I don't know if any of Schneider's book cover illustrations actually illustrated scenes from the books, but apparently author Karl May had no objection to them.  My guess is the naked covers helped sell more books.

This is the cover of Karl May's book Im Reiche des silbernen Löwen II (In the realm of the silver lion II), 1904-1905.

This is a non-commissioned work called Glut (Embers), 1904.  Yes, there's a naked woman in it, but also an abundance of naked men.

If there's any doubt as to what Schneider like to paint, look at this photo of him in his studio in 1906, surrounded by paintings of naked men.

Around this time, Sascha Schneider was blackmailed by an ex-lover who threatened to expose his homosexuality, which was illegal in Germany.  Schneider fled to Italy, where homosexuality was legal.  Eventually he returned to Germany.  Schneider was diabetic, and in 1927 he died from a diabetic seizure on a ship voyage.

To us, Schneider's work is so obviously homoerotic that it's hard to understand its popularity to the general public.  But the early 20th century was also the heyday of the German FKK (Freikörperkultur, or free body culture) movement, also known as the Health and Hygiene movement, which advocated a return to natural things, including healthy living, exercise, and nudity.  Schneider's nude male paintings were a perfect fit with FKK.  As a gay artist, he was in the right place at the right time.