DOI issue:
No. 91 (Septemner, 1904)
DOI article:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: The fine arts and horticultural exhibition at Düsseldorf
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26962#0304
Diisseldorf Exhibition
Diisseldorf is not quite as far advanced as
Dresden, but it has already a number of excel-
lent special attractions, among them several one-
man shows. The Menzel exhibition, enjoying the
patronage of the Emperor and the highest Prussian
State officials, is, of course, very fine. A number
of Menzel’s most famous pictures, such as The
Round Table at Sans Souci, and Frederic the Great
playing the Flute, have been included. And yet
the show is not fully representative, for paintings
of the period of the famous Piazza d'Erbe, Verona,
and the Iron Foundry are missing; likewise pictures
of that early period, when Menzel painted the
wonderful Theatre Gymnase, Paris, in a fashion
that was praised as a fine innovation of style in
masters who practised it at least a decade later
than he. Menzel’s finest achievements consist of
magnificent crayon, pencil, and charcoal drawings,
of which there is a fine collection on view.
Ignacio Zuloaga is the other painter to whom an
entire room has been allotted. There are eighteen
considerable canvases of his to be seen : the Portrait
of the Actress Consuelo, Car men the Dancer, the Street
of the Passions, and Un mot Piquant among them.
As far as Germany is concerned, Zuloaga was
discovered some years ago by the Berlin Secession,
where they have a way of raking out some new
hero every six months, who, for the length of one
season, is the only artist under the sun worth
looking at. Zuloaga was dethroned there by
Somoff, who in turn relinquished his place to
Slevogt, and he to Anglada. This habit was
copied from Paris, I believe, and it is a bad one,
tending to altogether confuse the public and make
them overrate an artist to an absurd degree. We
have since had plenty of Zuloaga at Dresden, at
Munich, at Vienna, and now at Diisseldorf, and
thus have had sufficient opportunity to discover
that far from being the matchless genius so many
declared him to be, he is a very clever artist,
painting in a peculiar style which he never varies
and which does not gain anything by constant
repetition.
The principal hall is devoted to a very fine show
of the works of Rodin, Bartholome, and Lagae.
Here we have something which is good without
PORTRAIT OF MME. D.
BY ALBERT BESNARD
Diisseldorf is not quite as far advanced as
Dresden, but it has already a number of excel-
lent special attractions, among them several one-
man shows. The Menzel exhibition, enjoying the
patronage of the Emperor and the highest Prussian
State officials, is, of course, very fine. A number
of Menzel’s most famous pictures, such as The
Round Table at Sans Souci, and Frederic the Great
playing the Flute, have been included. And yet
the show is not fully representative, for paintings
of the period of the famous Piazza d'Erbe, Verona,
and the Iron Foundry are missing; likewise pictures
of that early period, when Menzel painted the
wonderful Theatre Gymnase, Paris, in a fashion
that was praised as a fine innovation of style in
masters who practised it at least a decade later
than he. Menzel’s finest achievements consist of
magnificent crayon, pencil, and charcoal drawings,
of which there is a fine collection on view.
Ignacio Zuloaga is the other painter to whom an
entire room has been allotted. There are eighteen
considerable canvases of his to be seen : the Portrait
of the Actress Consuelo, Car men the Dancer, the Street
of the Passions, and Un mot Piquant among them.
As far as Germany is concerned, Zuloaga was
discovered some years ago by the Berlin Secession,
where they have a way of raking out some new
hero every six months, who, for the length of one
season, is the only artist under the sun worth
looking at. Zuloaga was dethroned there by
Somoff, who in turn relinquished his place to
Slevogt, and he to Anglada. This habit was
copied from Paris, I believe, and it is a bad one,
tending to altogether confuse the public and make
them overrate an artist to an absurd degree. We
have since had plenty of Zuloaga at Dresden, at
Munich, at Vienna, and now at Diisseldorf, and
thus have had sufficient opportunity to discover
that far from being the matchless genius so many
declared him to be, he is a very clever artist,
painting in a peculiar style which he never varies
and which does not gain anything by constant
repetition.
The principal hall is devoted to a very fine show
of the works of Rodin, Bartholome, and Lagae.
Here we have something which is good without
PORTRAIT OF MME. D.
BY ALBERT BESNARD