The Washington times., 1908-08-25
German Art for American Eyes.

A few days ago Ambassador Hill, at
Berlin, announced that Adolphus Busch
had given $4,000 for the erection OF a
building for the Germanic Museum of
Harvard University. Now comes word
that Hugo Reisinger, the New York art
connoisseur, Is in Berlin making final
arrangements for an exhibition Of Ger
man art to be held in the Metropolitan
Museum at New York next December
The Boston Copley Society is preparing
another exhibition of German art.
These somewhat innocent looking an
nouncements are really very significant
TO art lovers. t. American eyes
France has so OvershadOwed Germany
in the art world that for years to the
ordinary intelligent collector here the
latter either did not exist or existed
only as a terrible example. The result
is that in the typical gallery of this
country you will find ten paintings by
French artists to one by a German.
Now, was the feeling which pro-
duccd this state of affairs wholly un-
justified For the greater part of the
last half OF the nineteenth century when
one spoke of German painting ne meant
the painting of the Dusseldorf and
Munich schools. He meant pictures of
tlaNeu- haired maidens, with doll faces
and vacuous expressions, with impos-
sible flowers growing and impossible
doves flying about, the whole thing en-
veloped in a light that never was on
land OF sea. lie meant theatrical rose
tinted mountains overlooking oceans
that no one but Achenbach and his COM
peers could have conceived. He meant
cheap sentimentality and slayish adher-
ence to illogical conventions.
To be sure, there were names in Ger
many that commanded respect-AIenzel
and Boecklin and Lenbach and a few
others, but for the most part their
works were boarded zeaIousIy in the
1atherland, and it was the output of the
Dusseldorf school, principally, that was
seen in the national and international
exhibitions and bought by the collectors
Of the United States
Then one day rumors reached this
country Of "a secession movement in
Munich, one that baked at the academic
conventions, and returning travellers
brought word of a new note of origi-
nahty and life in the canvases seen at
the annual exhibitions in the large Ger
man cities, and gradually 1t has dawned
upon us that something like a reuais-
sance OF art has taken place in Ger
many, and that nation viii have to be
reckoned with in the art of the future.
In the meantime the number of works
by modern German artists owned in
tnis country Is still insignificant. and
the coming exhibitions will likely be
a revelation to many who visit them.
1t is to be hoped that not only will the
old notables, Nenzel and Lcnbach and
Boecklin and Gephardt, be well repre-
sented, but that the works of men of A
later generation like Max KIinger and
RAM STUCK anu AlDefL Meier may
also be shown adequately. The move
ment is a splendid one, for it means
that not only viii Americans become
acquainted with modern German art.
but also that the people of Germany
viii learn of the work being done by
American artists, for the German exhi-
hilton in New York Is tO be fofiovra5
by an American exhibition in Berlin
next year. American seulptors and
painters Of today are doing a work that