Max Liebermann
health; and don't believe in the adage, " Fools was understood and appreciated. It was indeed
build houses for wise men to live in"—nay, rather so thoroughly at variance with what had been
it is often in these days of the jerry-builder a case customary that it called forth a general outcry of
of " Knaves build houses for fools to live in." indignation, which grew louder as the power and
P. H. Emerson. vigour of the young artist's work was instinctively
felt. The result was that in defence of what had
THE WORK OF MAX LIEBER- been down till then the ideal standard in art, the
MANN. BY A. E. LUTTICKE. German public, led by the art critics, condemned
his work as impossible, and so for years his
Max Liebermann is, without doubt, the paintings were better known and appreciated
first and most important representative or German abroad—more particularly in Paris—than in his
Impressionism and open-air painting, standing with own country. To-day this painter is recog-
Klinger and one or two others at the head of the nised by most as the reviver of real art and one of
younger generation of present-day German artists, the pioneers of its further development, although
Impressionism, which in the beginning was cried there are still those who continue to cavil at his
down as being a kind of mania for ugliness, work. Subject though he has been to many
becomes, under the brush of this artist, the con- influences, there is always individuality in his art,
vincing expression of the most familiar scenes in his forte being decidedly the representing of
Nature and the world around. Since Liebermann humanity from its deepest and hardest side, the
first appeared in the art world, some thirty years reproduction of clumsy, awkward positions of the
since, he has perhaps been the most discussed of toilers, and above all the suggestion of a move-
any artist, but it was long before his particular art ment which has either taken place or is to come,
" ALMSHOUSES "
BY MAX LIEBERMANN
203
health; and don't believe in the adage, " Fools was understood and appreciated. It was indeed
build houses for wise men to live in"—nay, rather so thoroughly at variance with what had been
it is often in these days of the jerry-builder a case customary that it called forth a general outcry of
of " Knaves build houses for fools to live in." indignation, which grew louder as the power and
P. H. Emerson. vigour of the young artist's work was instinctively
felt. The result was that in defence of what had
THE WORK OF MAX LIEBER- been down till then the ideal standard in art, the
MANN. BY A. E. LUTTICKE. German public, led by the art critics, condemned
his work as impossible, and so for years his
Max Liebermann is, without doubt, the paintings were better known and appreciated
first and most important representative or German abroad—more particularly in Paris—than in his
Impressionism and open-air painting, standing with own country. To-day this painter is recog-
Klinger and one or two others at the head of the nised by most as the reviver of real art and one of
younger generation of present-day German artists, the pioneers of its further development, although
Impressionism, which in the beginning was cried there are still those who continue to cavil at his
down as being a kind of mania for ugliness, work. Subject though he has been to many
becomes, under the brush of this artist, the con- influences, there is always individuality in his art,
vincing expression of the most familiar scenes in his forte being decidedly the representing of
Nature and the world around. Since Liebermann humanity from its deepest and hardest side, the
first appeared in the art world, some thirty years reproduction of clumsy, awkward positions of the
since, he has perhaps been the most discussed of toilers, and above all the suggestion of a move-
any artist, but it was long before his particular art ment which has either taken place or is to come,
" ALMSHOUSES "
BY MAX LIEBERMANN
203