Memory

"Dear Philip,

As promised, I am sending you a little "souvenir" of your last visit in Taormina... As you remember, Pascualino was behind the camera, he made this photograph, so I should create a stamp: "Pascualino fecit, Taormina".?

You looked so great with your white suit... You wanted so much me to be on the photograph... I am standing up against the pillar of the entrance gate of my garden...

"A souvenir, Wilhelm, my friend..." You told me... "I would like so much to have you on this photograph..."

Usually, I don't like that much to be shot on a photograph beside my visitors and my customers... But for you, Philip, I broke the rule. Because I know you understood what really matters, and you are looking, among my photographs, to the atemporal part...

You told me what you are dreaming and thinking about, we spoke so much about Vergil and Plato, Strato and Theocritus, well, the both of us love the music of Latin language, and mainly of Greek language, this is such an horizon of beauty, perfection, humanity and intelligence...

Who else better than you, Philip, who else could understand the idea or the intent, the poem or the concept, the dream or the music buried deep within each of my photograph ? 

Through the years, your letters make me think that, among all the visitors coming to my place, Piazza San Domenico, there is one, at least, who understood everything, who is sharing my gaze and my feeling, my heart and my memory...

You understood that each one of my photographs is a story, a love story, involving the photographer and his models, the photographs and those who chose to buy it...

Some of my customers are concerned only with the surface of my photographs... Others are going beyond the surface, towards the heart of the photograph... Yes, all my photographs, all my models have a heart..

Each one of my photographs, either a landscape, a portrait, nude boys or boys with veils, is telling a story, is singing a song, is just a music.

You are among  those who know how to listen to a music while looking at a photograph...

We understand each other so well, beyond any words...

Pascualino asked me to tell you... He loves you very much... He will not forget you... He knows you love him too... 

Pascualino's life is here, in Taormina... He loves this country, its light, its perfumes, its music...

But Pascualino will never forget you... He will not forget Philip...

I will not forget you either, Philip... Please, come back to Taormina as soon as you can.... We will dream aloud about the horizons we share...

Your friend

Wilhelm v. G."

Letter from Wilhelm von Gloeden to Philip X, Von Gloeden Archive, call number, 1906/08/20/01.