The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-10-13
OUR FOREIGN LETTER.
Special Correspondence of the PREss.)
AfTTNTCH

MUNICH.
If friend should ask for what Munich
was distinguished, we should reply modern
art and honest hackmen. Progress in the
fine arts is certainly an index of advancing
civilization, but no more the sign of good
times coming in this degenerate world than
the uprightness of poor hackmen. The cheap
ness Of carriage hire in Munich, which has
cut down the rates to a starvation point,
makes the fair dealings of this class of men
stand out in bold relief against the notable
extortions of their brothers in European
countries generally. April showers caught
us at every turn, so we patronized the hack
men for many short rides and we were
amazed at the independent and businesslike
manner in which the driver took his half
mark for half an hour, and his whole mark
for whole hour. We never knew one to
pull out his watch and dispute a difference
of a few seconds with our time, or to hang
on for pour boire. We like to take share
of the credit for this, for we think honesty
is virtue indigenous to the Saxon blood,
which never fails to come to perfection I'M
der good Sabbath school training.
five could only emigrate with good colony
OF our friends we would like to live in Munich
1t is clean, healthful city, and delightfully."-
situated in sight of the Alps, and possesses
the advantages both of city and country.
The city abounds in the memorials of King
Ludwig L., whose praises are on all lips. His
noble virtues and efforts to develope his
country's resources, and to encourage the tai
ents of Ills subjects make the vagaries and
misanthropy of his grandson, Ludwig H.,
harder for the people to bear. One of his
first benefactions to the city was the Mum
chener Kunstler Genossenschaft; it is such
jaw-cracking name one would walk a mile
rather than inquire the way to it; but when
you once were there you could find much to
interest you. The institution has a fund,
which pays the salary of the manager, a COM
petent man of business, who speaks several
languages. 1t is his duty to receive pictures
and make sales for the artists, who are much
relieved in this way of the anxiety of finding
purchasers, and of the burden of paying
commissions to the dealers. The Glyptothek
and Pinakothek are fine museums of sculp-
ture and painting, the gifts also of this King.
Nowhere have we seen such grand paint
ings by modern artists as here. Some of the
very best pictures in the Salon were puny
efforts beside the works of Schraudolph, Pi-
lofty, Kaulbach Verbockhoven, Meisner and
others. If Schraudolph's Scriptural paint
ings were only dingy with the smoke of CEN
sers, and had the prestige of age they would
we'll bear comparison with hundreds, which
could not be bought today for the gold of
Ophir.
We made call upon Meisner at his coun-
try villa, where he spends his summer and
keeps small herd of sheep and cattle for
his models, which are truly favored few
among thousands of their kind. The walls
of his room are hung with portraits of his
pet animals among which we recognized
frisky old ram which appears in several of
his paintings that have found their way to
America. This old fellow grew so plethoric
and unmanageable by his luxurious life,
spent in feeding upon fat pastures and pos
ing in comfortable stall fitted up in one
corner of the rustic studio, that his master
was forced to part with him last season,
much to his regret We would almost think
Melsner could paint him in the dark he has
repeated his head so often. Although he is
no more he will doubtless take his place in a
good many pastoral scenes on canvas, as the
same old fighter, and defender of the little.
ones in the flock.
We enjoyed a long talk with Rosenthal, in
his workroom, which is quite storehouse
of draperies, furniture, costumes and other
accessories of character painting. In these
critical and cultured days an artist must be
versed in all the minor details of the GUS
toms, the dress and the house furnishing of
the incidents he undertakes to illustrate, or
he is sure to be brought to an account for his
errors. Formerly all manner of discrepan-
cies and absurdities were accepted as pictO-
raj licenses. An amusing example of this is
before London critics in art at the present
time. An artist had painted with great care
and skill the familiar courtShip of Ruth and
Beaz. He shows in his work, his thorough
acquaintance with the dress and domestic
life of the times; but if he trusted to his i'm
agination for his landscape he might have
escaped shipwreck of all his hopes. In his
desire to paint nature faithfully he made his
sketch in Palestine and introduced gener-
Dusly in his foreground the cacti that abound
here. No sooner was his picture set up to
Jll6 puUllC SdLc Jiidu oOIiO Ply
zones along and turns the laugh upon him
by saying that the cactus was not introduced |
nto the Holy land until twenty-five hundred |
Years after Ruth took Boaz for better or for |
worse.
Rosenthal is one of our own countrymen, |
# whom American enthusiasts on art can |
veil boast. He is not to be excelled in his adj |
nirable conceptions and handling of historic
ubjects At the time of our visit he had
arge picture on his easel which he termed |
The Dance of Our Grandmothers, in which
he costumes and the characteristic attitudes
we're something marvellous. He is full of
-isions and dreams of subjects in history and
cripture that he wants to paint, but the
uestion of bread and butter keeps him, as
lso many other artists, from ultimat-
ng his dreams. While money is more wide
' difused today than ever before, so are the
forks of art, which makes artists in general,
luch better off yet some of the great ones of
he craft think they labor under more seri-
us disadvantages than if the money was in
he hands of the few. In Olden times, if an
rtist could secure the good graces of a !