of Berlin Photographic Company.

PEASANT WOMEN OF DACHAUER

_From a painting by Leibl_]

Observing his "_Flax Barn_," in comparison with the work of his
compatriots, its fine freedom from triviality of detail was apparent,
and the beauty of its cool light, spread over large spaces and diffused
throughout the interior of the low shed, made itself felt. One noted
also, as elements of the picture's peculiarly dignified appeal, the
severe arrangement of the figures with the long row of workers under the
windows, the long threads of flax passing over their heads to the women
in the foreground, and the almost straight line formed in turn by these
women. The composition, quite geometrical in its precision, gave a sense
of deep repose in spite of the vitality of the individual figures and
the impression they made of being able to turn and move at will, an
impression nearly always missed by Leibl, Liebermann's great forerunner
in the painting of humble life. We get much the same austere effect from
the almshouse pictures of old men and women on benches in the open
square, always arranged in a geometrical design, and always calm in
gesture and mild in type, which appear from time to time in the foreign
exhibitions of Liebermann's work.

Liebermann has done for the Germans something of what Millet did for the
French. He has built his art upon the daily life of the poor, but while,
like Millet, he has introduced a monumental element into his work, it is
clearer, more closely reasoned, more firmly knit than Millet's art, and
at the same time less emotional. Liebermann's hospitality to purely
technical ideas, his interest in problems of light and air, his diligent
analysis of motion, his ability to translate a scene from the life of
the laboring class without sentimentality, without prettiness or
eloquence or any of the attributes that catch the multitude, give to his
art a touch of coldness that is not without its charm for those who care
for a highly developed orderly product of the mind.

Most of the Berlin men who are in any degree notable share somewhat in
this attribute. Arthur Kampf, although he has less than Liebermann of
cool detachment, has both elegance and gravity. He could hardly have had
a better representation by any one or two canvases than by the "Charity"
and the "Two Sisters" of the American exhibition. In the first he
depicts a street scene with its contrasts of poverty and wealth. A man
and woman in evening