International studio (16.1902)

Robert Sterl

A GERMAN PAINTER. ROBERT
STERL. BY DR. HANS W.
SINGER.
The subject of this notice presents, perhaps,
fewer attractions to the writer than to the friend. A
Well-known adage runs that those women are often
best about whom one hears least, and one may vary
't to the effect that those artists are often the best
about whom there is least to be said. Sterl as an
artist and as a man is characterised by a most welcome
steadiness and repose. When factions ran high at
Dresden he did not hesitate for a moment to show
whither he inclined, and enrolled himself a member
°fthe Dresden “Secession.” Yet when unfortunate
circumstances one after another made it impossible
fer that body to work peacefully for the good of
Dresden art, he quietly withdrew. By no means
°ne of your “good fellows,” whom in any quarrel
both friend and foe claim as their own, he fails
to take any interest in disputes, even when not

wholly personal, and he avoids upholding actively
or loudly any cause, let alone any individual. It
is best for the cause to take care of itself.
When the period of plein-air bore down upon
us—it seems ages, but in reality it is only a few
years ago—we were almost simultaneously beset
by the rage for “poor folk.” Since the days of
Rembrandt they had been nearly eliminated from
high art, and came in only as subjects for
genre-pictures, sentimental or comic as the case
might be. The straightforward simplicity of
olden times had been lost by the end of last
century, and when “ poor folk ” again figure
in painting it is not so much in the service of
purely artistic as of philosophical or social ideas.
“ Poor folk ” were not re-introduced, they were
pounced upon, they were hauled in to preach and
propound glaring revelations to a dull and re-
fractory public. The stories of the Bible, and of
mythology even, were dished up en poor-folk, and
we were expected to come to a true understanding


Labourer in a clay-pit”
XVI. No. 64.—June, 1902.

BY ROBERT STERL

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