Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1904 (Heft 6))

about with disheveled mane , brush in hand, painting the word Secession in every
available space not taken up by Heinze's “57 Varieties.”
Thereupon I plunged into the mystery. Oh, to be allowed to enter upon the
sacred spot! A chaos of hardware, picture-wire, bundles of Secession folklore and
pictorial visions greeted my eye. Amfortas looked worried. Something must have
been rankling in his wound. Gurnemanz was busy dusting the Shrine. Knight
White of Ohio and Launcelot French , on prancing steeds , arrived just then to
lend helping hands. Parsifal-Coburn was monologizing with his musical voice ,
which never sounds sweeter than when it is sending sweet nothmgs across the wire
to some maiden of the telephone. It was a great day of fasting and preparation.
The solemn hour approached. There was not a photographic heart in the
whole wide land which did not click with deep emotion; far off in distant New
York the Käsebier, late of Newport, prayed for the success of the Secession; in the
little viilage of Yonkers, Eickemeyer paced nervously up and down his ranch-room
wondering whether he had achieved the Quest. In the meanwhiie, all Pittsburg
thronged the Shrine, yet so spacious were the halls that at no time did they look
crowded.
And the Shrine — what a marvel of beauty! The famous altar-piece at
Ghent, painted by the two Dutchmen Van Eyck, has only twenty panels. The
Secession Shrine embraces no less than three hundred, fashioned by fifty-four
individual workers, and among them at Ieast a dozen Dutchmen. The main Shrine
was painted by Titurel-Steichen. Ah, that one can be so great! To make nature
his hand-maiden and to create at will moons and moonlight that never yet were on
land or sea! And withal to remain so simple and naїve. A child could understand
his photopaints and paintographs. Even that great art connoisseur of Pittsburg
Heinze , the pickle-man , found not the slightest difficulty; tapping Titurel on the
shoulder, he remarked: “Ah, I see! You make your things look antique; you are
an impressionist.”
The right and left wings of the Shrine were the excellent workmanship of
Gertrude Käsebier and of White of Ohio. Ah, to devote one'sentire life to the task of
finding the miraculous cure to heal Amfortas'self-inflicted wound! And then
the work of all the other knights! To dwell upon all the beauties of the Shrine
would fiil several years of Camera Notes of able editing.
And how was this miracle accomplished ? Ah, you would not ask, knew you
Amfortas as I know him! To the Photochrome he went and set up this epistle:
“Steichenites, Keileyites, Käsebierians, and Whiteites! You Eugene , you Coburn,
you Strauss, you Stirling, and you Dyer—you Camera Workers of Philadelphia,
you Pictorialists of Chicago, you Lady Photogramists of Boston, you solitary
workers of Cincinnati and Baltimore, you of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Yonkers—all
you throughout the country, washed by the Atlantic and Pacific, and you who
dwell in the wastes of Canada—you shall follow and obey me! I am your King!
The Monarchy of Pictorial Photography is mine!” And they did follow and
obey him.
Great were the festivities that followed the opening of the Shrine. King
Amfortas and the Knights of the Table Round were feasted by the Photographic
Temperance Club of Pittsburg; the fatted calf was killed, but no wine flowed. As

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