erly
brought to this country.

Compared, then, with the paintings of American artists and with those of
the Frenchmen, whose work we have known so much better than that of any
other country, compared also with the work of the modern Spaniards,
whose paintings were on exhibition the same winter at the Hispanic
Museum, we find the special character of the German painting to exist in
a resolute individualism, a determination to express the inner life of
the artist, his temperament and predilections and his mood at whatever
cost of technical facility. Expressiveness, getting the idea into
circulation, getting something said, this appears to be the common goal
of the German painter of the present day.

In such case, of course, the idea is of particular importance. If it is
to take precedence over purely esthetic qualities it is reasonable to
expect it to be an idea of no little importance. Let us examine some of
the painters represented in the exhibition arranged for America, and see
whether in most cases the idea is emotional as with the artists of China
and Japan, and therefore peculiarly appropriate to translation by
rhythms of line and harmonies of color, or intellectual, and therefore
demanding a complex and difficult expression and the solution of
technical problems that do not come into the question at all when
nothing else is required than to evoke an especial mood or temper of
soul.

The oldest of the painters represented was Adolf von Menzel, who was
born in 1815 and died in his ninetieth year. As he began work at an
early age his accomplishment practically covers the period of the
nineteenth century. He has been designated by one of his German critics
as three Menzels in one: the first, the historian of the Freiderician
period; the second, the historian of his own time, recording the court
life in which he played his part; the third, the acute observer of the
life of the streets and workrooms and a commentator on the amusing
details of the passing show.

A number of his sketches were shown at the exhibition, a couple of
landscapes, a ballroom scene and a theater subject, beside a little
mediaeval subject in gouache. These displayed his dexterity of hand
which was truly astounding, and also his memory, as the "Theatre
Gymnase" was painted fully a year after he left Paris. The ballroom
supper was painted in an ironic mood and the gluttony of his fellow
humans, their unattractive personalities, their curious asp