Studio: international art (7.1896)

Studio- Talk

By kind permission of the artist, w e are enabled to matters artistic, notably VV. Bode, have long known
give an illustration of Herr Uhde's fine painting, what there is in Liebermann.
Sorrowful, which attracted considerable attention. -

H. P. Ample proof of this was afforded recently to all
those who could see, and were willing to learn, by

BERLIN.—I scarcely know whether it be a collection of this artist's pictures exhibited in
permissible to speak of a " Berlin Schulte's art galleries—ample proof of what Lieber-
School." Menzel, the great artist mann is, what are his aims, and what his powers,
whose birthday we recently celebrated, The subjects were diversified enough : A Man
stands alone, and has no followers. Sitting on the Sands; A Path under the Leafy
Indeed, among our young artists there are very Trees; A Dutch Village Street; An Interior, with
few whom one would class in any school what- a Child—all showing the same articulate express-
ever. If, however, this small minority may be said iveness, all a like power of conception and achieve-
to constitute a " Berlin School" in themselves, ment, all exhibiting a harmonious personality, all
then Max Liebermann must undoubtedly be styled proclaiming the complete artist.

their chief. The people who have a genuine taste -

for art, who are gifted with a keen flair, and do not So far as I am personally concerned, the Man on
begin to cry out when any new path in art-work is the Sands impressed me most. You see him seated
opened up—as, alas ! do most of the prejudiced in the foreground to the left of the picture, a
art critics in Berlin ; in a word, our best judges in weather-beaten man, whose life is but labour and

sorrow. With folded hands
he is resting from the
weight of his basket in the
silent loneliness of the
sands, majestically simple in
the endless undulations of
their lines, in the mono-
tony of the tints of the
grasses and plants springing
up here and there from
their midst. Here Nature
and man are one. And he
who, with these simple
materials, can bring so
powerful a scene before
our eyes, is indeed a real
artist, no matter what may
be the principle on which
he works. The accompany-
ing reproduction of one of
Liebermann's works will
speak more eloquently than
any words of mine.

This is not the occasion
on which to trace the de-
velopment of Liebermann's
career ; but I hope soon to
have an opportunity of deal-
ing fully with his work, and at
the same time to give repro-
ductions of a larger number
of his pictures, drawings, and
from a painting by max liebermann etchings. For the present it

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