Studio: international art (18.1900)

IVilhelm Leibl

critics were right. Even to-day one cannot repress
a feeling of sorrow that the work should never have
been completed—or, rather, should thus have been
destroyed. Few indeed are the artists who would
have shown so keen a self-criticism.

It will easily be understood that Leibl's pictures
at that time found but little favour with the public,
or even with the critics, for they contained none
of the anecdotal qualities so dear to the majority.
" The man who has the misfortune to be an artist
in Germany," exclaimed Leibl, " might well half-
die of vexation. . I can only pursue my art in my
own way, conscious that there is no trace of charla-
tanism in it."

However, Leibl could find pride and consolation
in the support he received abroad. " Hitherto," he
remarks, " very few have praised my work in Ger-
many ; the more rejoiced am I, therefore, that I
have laboured elsewhere." He was naturally grate-
ful when his Banernpolitikerwas bought for 15,000
francs and hung by its British purchaser side by
side with the work of masters such as Troyon and
Horace Vernet; and it pleased him greatly to hear
that Alma Tadema had one of his drawings in his
studio.

Something of the great impression produced on
the intelligent by these pictures may be realised on
reading the comments of the French newspapers
on the subject. " This is something more than
painting—such is the cry of admiration I hear
from the spectator"! Thus the comment of
A. de Lostalot, when the Bauempolitiker, the
Frauen in der Kirche, and Die Nelke were ex-
hibited in 1878. This art was realised as being a
return to that realism of detail which was ever the
great characteristic of Northern work. " M. Leibl
is capable of teaching the German school that in
which it has been most greatly lacking for a cen-
tury past — simplicity" {Gazette des Beaux-Arts,
1882). " This will be a tremendous painter " (wrote
Duranty in 1879); and, indeed, it was clear to
see the future "Master" in the painter; and a
steady advance in power was soon observable, with
a change of manner. Yet the milieu of his pic-
tures ever remained the same, and his delicacy of
observation never for a moment forsook him. But
while he at last was treading the path which was
to bring him near to the greatness of Holbein
himself, while, with admirable sureness and freedom
of vision, he continued to draw and paint, he was
constantly seeking still greater perfection of style.
It may truly be said, indeed, that Leibl's third
period includes all that was best in his first and
in his second.
170

His method grew broad and bold once more, as
it had been in his early days, when his as yet un-
mastered brushwork gave promise of the breadth
and power that would come with wider experience.
No longer was it possible to reproach him with
forgetting the ensemble in his excessive regard for
detail. It is characteristic of Leibl that he should
then have devoted himself with all his ardour to
his immediate surroundings. In point of colour
and delicacy his work now produced was on a level
with that of the great Dutch painters of interiors,
yet with no suggestion of their " tone." Leibl's
canvases continued to be light and joyous. After
his interiors he turned to landscape. Some years
ago his friend Sperl painted the landscape portion
of Leibl's picture, Frauen im Obstgarten. Only
a short time ago I had an opportunity here in
Berlin of seeing one of Leibl's pictures, his Bauem-
liaus, the cottage in which he dwells, beneath the
green boughs of the overhanging trees. Every
one was bound to admit that this work contained
evidence of all Leibl's good qualities.

The following works among others belong to
Leibl's third period : Die Wildschiitzen, Zeitungs-
leser am Feierabeud, Die Spinnstube (in private
possession at Basle), Alte Frau tend Jdger (1893),
Bauerujagers Heimkelir (1894), In der Kleinstadt
(now in the New Pinakothek, Munich), Mddchen
am Herd, and several other pictures of Upper
Bavarian peasant girls. These did not provoke
outcry—as did some of Leibl's earlier works—
" Ce n'est plus de la peinture ! " As a matter of
fact this is painting in the highest and truest sense
of the word. How simple, how plain, how true
they are ! Not till they are closely examined does
one realise the delicacy of the painting. Note all
the details : the furniture, the cupboard with the
light glinting from above; or see, through the tiny
window of the little room, the landscape outside—
all wonderful in their absolute truth and reality.
This is not a mere copy, a transcript, it is the thing
itself we have before our eyes. To all appearance
Leibl has fresh surprises in store for us, for the
pictures he had done during the past year show
wonderful power, and seem to attain greater heights
than even the best of his former work. I refer
particularly to three paintings which were finished
during the spring: the figure of a peasant girl,
decked in her best, with a flower in her hand—a
modern pendant, if you will, to Rembrandt's
Saskia in the Dresden Gallery—and two groups,
both representing a girl and a lad in a kitchen.
The warm, magical tone pervading these canvases
is worthy to rank with the best work of the old