Huntsville gazette., 1888-06-23
ANTON Won WERNER.
The Justly Celebrated Painter Laureate o
the German Empire.


the German Empire.
England is proud of its soldiers and
statesmen; no nation is more eager to
perpetuate their memory by the art of
the painter or the silent witness of
..storied urn and animated bust"
Great portrait painters, therefore. are,
and always have been, with us. But
it must be admitted that contemporary
scenes of permanent national and his
torical interest have hardly, in our own
day at least, found a brush worthy to
give to posterity the actual manner of
their happening as q possession for
ever. We have great portraits of
Gladstone, Of Disraeli, of Bright. of
Salisbury. But we have no great pic
lures of Gladstone, Of Dsraeli, of
Bright. of Salisbury, as they appeared
in single great historic scene in Par
lament or before the people. Germa-
ny is more fortunate. The events Of
the current half-century have made the
national self-conSciousnes of Germany
so real and so intense as to be potent
source of artistic inspiration. There
have been moments in recent German
history of such supreme and concen-
trated interest that their Interpretation
by pencil and brush offered for great
German artist dignuS Uindice nodatS.
The great artist arose in the person OF
Anton Won Werner. Thousands of En-
glishmen, know his pictures who have
hardly or never heard his name. Ev
ery one knows the Proclamation Of
the First Emperor of Germany at Yer
sailles" and the Berlin Congress group.
But these are only two of many can
vases by the German painter laureate,
which are of great and abiding Euro
pean interest and of no less artistic
merit
was, therefore, most grateful to a
young English pupil of the famous
painter who, during my recent visit
to Berlin, introduced me to Anton Won
Werner, and took me one evening to
call upon him at his house in the Pots
damer strasse. We entered a large
salon with somewhat somber paneling.
and illumined by q subdued light 1t
had the air at once Of reception room
and study. Portfolios. engravings,
were crowded on stands, or lay open
on chairs and divans. A good many
paintings, one could see at q glance,
adorned the walls. At the further end
of the room, bending over an open
desk, which was Uttered with papers,
sat, in the shaded light of reading
lamp, the great painter himself. He
rose to greet us cordially, without effu-
siveness, but without the least self
conscious reserve. A hearty, kindly
German greeting it was, and a German
grasp of the hand. A man who looked his
age forty-fve), but no more; 4 delight
full type of face, delicate in its outline,
yet strongly masculine, with the steady,
fearless look, and the twinkle Of old
German humor which form such a
strong combination when we find
them in blue Teutonic eyes. His full
beard and hair are still yellow, and are
disorderly, not with the artificial un-
kemptness of the lackadaisical art
ist, but the natural carelessneSs of the
hard worker. He wore an old gray
tweed suit and old comfortable slip
pers, which, I think, may have been
down at the heels. In less time than
it takes to write it we were quite "ver-
traut" together. Mall Gazette.
"A teacher was endeavoring to find
out the proficiency of her pupils in
mental arithmetic, and took the follow
ing way to do it; Now, children,
suppose | have two squash pies, and
divide one of them in ten pieces and
the other into one hundred pieces
Which would you rather have, a piece
of the pie that was divided into ten
pieces OF of that cut into one hundred
pieces?" There was silence for 81 mo-
ment, and then little girl answered
timidly: "One of the one hundred
pieces" "Why SOP" "Well, please,
ma am, don't like squash pie"
-Bookbinder "Will you have 1t
bound in turkey or morocco" Pur-
chasoT-"Oh mercy no What Is the