ggestiveness by
translation into the more definite medium of oil-color, and he holds
_Griffelkunst_, or the art of the point in as high estimation as any
other art for the interpretation of ideas appropriate to it, an opinion
not now as unusual as when he first announced it to his countrymen. For
about five years after the close of his student period, he occupied
himself chiefly with etchings, turning out between 1879 and 1883 no
fewer than nine of the elaborate "cycles" which are so expressive of his
method of thought, and of the best qualities of his workmanship. In
these cycles he delights in following a development not unlike that of a
musical theme, beginning with a prelude and carrying the idea through
manifold variations to its final expression. His curious history of the
finding of a glove which passes through different symbolic forms of
individuality in the dreams of a lover, is a fair example of his
eccentric and somewhat lumbering humor in the use of a symbol in his
earlier years. His etchings for Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ show the same
violent grasp of the lighter side of his subject, but in his landscape
etchings of 1881 we have ample opportunity to see what he could do with
a conventionally charming subject treated with conventional sentiment
and without symbolic intention. The moonlight scene which he calls
_Mondnacht_, has all the subtle exquisite feeling for harmony and tone
to be gained from a Whistler nocturne. The dim light on the buildings,
the soft sweep of the clouds across the dark sky, the impalpable
rendering, the grave and deep beauty of the scene combine to express the
essence of night and its mystery. The oil-painting _Abend_, of 1882,
also bears eloquent testimony to Klinger's power to evoke purely
pictorial images of great loveliness.

In 1882, after about a year of study in Munich, he painted the important
frescoes for the Steglitz Villa, in which the influence of Boecklin
played freely. It was in Paris, however, where he studied between 1883
and 1885, that Klinger received his strongest and most definite impulse
toward painting. His _Judgment of Paris_ revealed the fact that the
young painter had come into possession of himself, and could be depended
upon for qualities demanding constraint and a measure of severity. In
choosing a legend of antiquity for the subject of his picture, he may
have felt a psychological obligation to obey the greater influences of
the antique tradition. At all eve