Eugen Sandow et les artistes

Impossible de s'intéresser au sujet de l'"homme fort" sans consacrer quelques lignes à Friedrich Müller, dit Eugen Sandow, si célèbre qu'il laissa son nom au câble élastique qu'il popularisa. Célébré comme l'"inventeur" du Bodybuiding parce qu'il fonda en 1901 le premier concours international de la discipline (jugé en compagnie de Charles Lawes, sculpteur et rameur, et de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle au Royal Albert Hall de Londres)
Voici comment l'on rapporte l'événement:


La première grande compétition de bodybuilding a été organisée par Eugen Sandow, qui a popularisé le culturisme par ses nombreuses expositions personnelles en Europe et en Amérique. Cette « grande compétition », comme il aimait à appeler son concours a eu lieu en 1901 en Angleterre.
En Juillet 1898, le premier numéro du Magazine Sandow a annoncé que le concours serait ouvert à tous les étudiants Sandow au Royaume-Uni. Le but était de promouvoir la diffusion de la culture physique et «des encouragements à ceux qui sont soucieux de leur forme physique parfaite.
«  Le prix s’élève à 1.000 tentant guinées (plus de $ 5000 à l’époque), et l’homme jugé pour avoir le corps plus parfaitement mis au point serait accordé une statuette en or massif magnifique de Sandow lui-même -sculptée par l’artiste William Pomeroy 7ans auparavant- d’une valeur de 500 livres (2500 $).
Le gagnant de la deuxième place serait accordé une statuette en argent massif, et le gagnant pour la troisième place recevrait une de bronze. »

 

Cette statuette est devenue dans les années 50 l'emblème du concours Mr Univers

Après près de trois ans des championnats du comté, la date du samedi 14 Septembre 1901, a finalement été fixée pour le Concours. Avis est apparu tout Londres annonçant le spectacle magnifique.
Nous voici donc le soir du 14 Septembre, un spectacle émouvant de voir tous ces sportifs qui défilent en cadence. Seul le costume -obligatoire- des hommes entame à la solennité de l’occasion: collant noir, ceinture noire jockey et peaux de léopards.
La peau de léopard et les collants couvrent les jambes des concurrents.
Les juges marchait lentement le long de cette file d’athlète, les meilleurs de l’albion, s’arrêtant ici et là pour les inspecter de plus près.

Ils ont pris leurs décisions, et 12 finalistes ont été choisis dans le groupe, c’est l’heure de l’entracte…
Quand le spectacle reprend, Sandow fait le spectacle. Il est venu au milieu de l’arène et réalise performances, qui le rendront célèbre. Il pose, arrache un jeu de cartes en deux, souleve des poids qui impressionnent le public en gardant sa force et sa grâce.
Les spectateurs le célébrèrent d’une ovation qui a dura cinq bonnes minutes. Ils étaient évidemment reconnaissants non seulement pour ses performances, mais pour tous ses travaux pour le compte de la culture physique.
Une fois la prestation de Sandow terminé, le moment le plus attendu de la soirée arriva : la décision finale. La statue de bronze pour la troisième place revient à l’AC Smythe de Middlesex, la statue d’argent pour la deuxième place à D. Cooper, de Birmingham, et la statue en or massif de Grande-Bretagne et d’Irlande à William L. Murray de Nottingham.

 Murray, vainqueur du concours

 Eggleton (1905) manager anglais de Sandow

 

Plus tôt, Sandow avait été recruté aux Etats-Unis par Ziegfeld qui monta pour lui deux tournées à travers les Etats-unis, arrangea son mariage, et lui fit adopter une tenue à la fois plus virile et plus dénudée que le maillot de lutte que Sandow arborait en spectacle avant son passage entre les mains de Ziegfeld:

 Ziegfeld, now Sandow’s manager, created a number of rumors to underscore Sandow’s he-man image by linking him romantically to several women, notably the alluring beauty Lillian Russell. He also beefed up Sandow’s act and, in a move that would catapult Sandow into international superstardom, he changed Sandow’s costume. Before Chicago, Sandow had performed in a neck-to-toe pink leotard and blue singlet, but Ziegfeld stripped him down to a pair of skin-tight, white silk trunks. Newspaper illustrations of the time almost always show Sandow from behind, suggesting that a frontal view would have been too scandalous to publish. In the few frontal views that were published, his boxers are usually darkened to conceal the offending bulges.

Sandow’s debut in his skimpy outfit received thunderous applause, and as Sandow took his bows, Ziegfeld appeared on stage, announcing that women who donated $300 to charity could come to Sandow’s dressing room to caress his muscles. Mrs. Potter Palmer and Mrs. George Pullman, grand dames of Chicago society, were first in line. However, men got in for free, and they were the ones who crowded Sandow’s room. It wasn’t the first of Sandow’s after-hours performances. In Europe, he had given private soirées after his act, but they had been confidential and sporadic. Ziegfeld made them public and regular, guaranteeing that they would be a topic of gossip for Chicagoans for months to come. It was so successful that Sandow held them during his entire run at the Trocadero. 

Avant Ziegfeld, la célébrité de Sandow s'était construite en tant que modèle d'atelier, à Londres, grâce entre autre au peintre Aubrey Hunt qu'il avait rencontré à Venise:

Sandow, jeune (fin des années 1880) sans la fameuse moustache

Les citations en anglais qui suivent sont empruntés à l'article du Pr Jim Elledge Eugen Sandow legacy to gay men qui soulèvent des points peu connus de l'histoire personnelle du Nouvel Hercule:

...in 1885, Sandow left his home in Prussia at age eighteen to avoid the military draft, touring the Continent with circuses, taking part in wrestling matches, and giving exhibits of strength to make a living. In early 1887,he found himself stranded and jobless in Brussels. To make ends meet, he modeled nude for established and up-and-coming artists, some of whom paid for more than his ability to stand still.

Sandow left Brussels for Venice in 1888 and paid a visit to the Lido, a well-known cruising area for gay men. Much later he would claim (in an article in Strand magazine, March 1910) that he’d been swimming in the ocean when he noticed that “I had become the particular attraction for a gentleman sauntering by. As I apologized in passing him he stopped to compliment me upon what he was pleased to term my ‘perfect physique and beauty of form.’ That casual critic proved to be none other than Aubrey Hunt, the famous artist, with whom I afterwards became on terms of close friendship, and to whom I had the pleasure of posing in the character of a Roman gladiator.”

Gay men easily read between the lines: Hunt was cruising the beach; Sandow was drumming up trade and knew he’d caught Hunt’s eye. By speaking first, he indicated that he was available, allowing Hunt to respond according to his wishes. By complimenting the Adonis quality of his body, the gentleman declared his desire for the 22ye ar-old hunk. 

Hunt’s painting of Sandow, The Gladiator

 

Le rapport entre Sandow et le monde artistique culmina en 1901 avec la commande par le Museum of History de Londres d'un moulage grandeur nature de l'athlète pour servir de modèle "vivant" aux peintres. Oublié dans les caves du Musée, le moulage en 5 pièces ne revit le jour que deux fois avant que Schwartzenegger n'en commande une copie pour sa collection personnelle.

 Photo prise pendant la séance de pose

 Etat actuel

While appearing at the Casino, Sandow was living openly with another man, the composer and musician Martinus Sieveking. The two men met when both were nineteen and formed a bond the nature of which seems obvious enough but which somehow didn’t compromise either man’s career. A reporter for New York World (June 20, 1893) described their arrangement thus:

Sandow is living now at No. 210 West Thirty-eighth Street. With him there lives a friend, Mr. Martinus Sieveking, who is a very able pianist. Mr. Sieveking is a Dutchman. His musical compositions have already attracted considerable attention in London, and he is an unusually brilliant artist. He and Sandow are bosom friends. He thinks that Sandow is a truly original Hercules, and that no one has ever lived to be compared to him. Sandow thinks that Mr. Sieveking is the greatest pianist in the world and that he is going to be greater. It is pleasant to see them together. Mr. Sieveking, who is a very earnest musician, practices from seven to eight hours a day on a big three-legged piano. He is decidedly in earnest. He practices in very hot weather, stripped to the waist. While he plays Sandow sits beside him on a chair listening to the music and working his muscles. He is fond of the music and Sieveking likes to see Sandow’s muscles work. Both enjoy themselves and neither loses any time.

Gay men no doubt loved learning that Sieveking rehearsed half-naked while Sandow worked out, and that “neither loses any time,” whatever that might mean.

    Their relationship was an open secret among London’s cognoscenti, which didn’t stop one woman from trying to pry the couple apart. Caroline Otéro, called “La Belle Otéro,” was an infamous Spanish courtesan and lover of King Leopold of Belgium, Prince Albert of Monaco, the future Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Prince (later King) Edward of England, among others. Inviting Sandow over to her place for dinner, she apparently spent hours trying to seduce him, but he fended off her every move. She finally accepted defeat and sent him on his way.

   When Sandow moved to New York, Sieveking came along, but the latter wasn’t just the muscleman’s boy toy. Sieveking wrote some of the music for Sandow’s performances, notably “March of the Athletes” and “Sandowia,” and also played them on the piano as the Adonis strutted across the stage, giving the act a touch of class. But more than that, Sieveking was a concert pianist and composer with an important career in his own right.

Ce n'est pas un peintre ni un sculpteur qui partageait la vie de Sandow avant son mariage mais le pianiste et compositeur néerlandais Martinus Sieveking, célèbre d'avoir au piano, comme Liszt l'envergure d'une douzième:

 Sandow l'associa comme modèle de démonstration de sa méthode!

  as reported in The Advocate (March 14, 1973), that certain “Cabaret acts and stage revues often featured performers who imitated Sandow with satirical intent. One skit in the musical pastiche L’Amour is especially revealing. An actor representing what is obviously Sandow impersonating a statue, is standing on a pedestal in a park. A bevy of young beauties cross in front. No reaction. Finally a sailor passes, and the fig leaf begins to rise and rise, until it stands straight out supported, obviously, by an erection.”

Sandow fut aussi un pionnier du cinéma servant de démonstrateur au kinetoscope d'Edison, dès 1894