ASYLUM FOR OLD MEN, AMSTERDAM · MAX LIEBERMANN
WOMAN WITH GOATS · MAX LIEBERMANN
So strong was his admiration for Millet that he went down to Barbizon, where he arrived shortly before the death of that great artist. Under the influence of Millet he painted Labourers in the Turnip Field, and Brother and Sister, which appeared in the Paris Salon of 1876. He now reached the turning-point of his career, for he had made up his mind that at all costs he must perfect his own individual style. A great unrest, useless to battle against, disorganised his movements. He travelled through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Italy, studying and searching for the inspiration which should place him in the right path. During these travels he met at Venice Lenbach, the portrait-painter, who told him to study in Munich. Tired of wandering he acted upon the suggestion, and passed six years in the Bavarian capital. For a period his art assumed a religious character, and he painted many biblical compositions. These works were coldly received, and in Munich they were strongly and adversely criticised. The clergy objected to them as profane, and a debate on the subject followed in the Bavarian Assembly. The life of the artist becoming exceedingly uncomfortable, Liebermann settled in Amsterdam, where he found a freer artistic atmosphere more congenial to his temperament. Disdaining the critical capacity of his native city, Liebermann forwarded all his finest works to Paris, and in the Salon of 1881 exhibited An Asylum for Old Men, which gained a medal in the third class, the first honour awarded to German art since the war. Having received the official imprimatur of Paris, his countrymen began to realise that an artist had grown up amongst them they could no longer afford to neglect. Liebermann’s works found purchasers throughout the Continent, and his future was assured. He was elected a member of the “Cercle des Quinze,” of which Alfred Stevens and Bastien-Lepage were prominent supporters, and he exhibited annually at the Salon Petit and other French collections. Since 1884 he has divided his time between Berlin and the little village of Zandvoort, near Hilversum, in Holland. Perhaps his early experiences account for the fact that when in the German capital he mixes little with its artistic society.
Liebermann has practised with success and ability every variety of artistic expression. His portraits alone would class him amongst the masters, taking as examples the Burgomeister Petersen, the Professor Virchow, and the Gerhart Hauptmann. He is equally facile with the burin, the needle, the pastel, or with water-colours. His activity is ceaseless, and his production, in consequence, enormous; he possesses robust health, uncommon strength, enormous fertility, traits common to the great artists of all ages.
In his fine canvas of the Courtyard of the Orphanage, Amsterdam, painted in 1881, Liebermann shows for the first time complete emancipation from the thrall of Munkacsy’s influence. The picture was exhibited in the Salon of 1882, and in it appears that peculiar note of red, now one of the distinguishing features of the artist’s work. Of this canvas Hochédé, the Parisian art critic, said that Liebermann must surely have been stealing sunbeams to paint with. Then commenced a long series of pictures such as the Ropeyard, the Netmenders, now one of the most valued pictures in the modern section of the Gallery at Hamburg, in which the Impressionist spirit is clearly manifested. The unimportant has been omitted, and the pith of the subject only is given. The point of view is focused, the inconsequent suppressed, and the “mise en scène” proves the artist to be an irreproachable draughtsman, as well as a colourist of the first rank. Liebermann’s pictures of “sous bois” are particularly pleasing, strikingly painted and original; they were the first of their kind in Germany, and disconcerted the whole artistic community.
In following the progress of Liebermann’s art, one notes that he is attracted unceasingly by problems of light. If Manet is the great apostle of “plein air” painting, surely no one has yet surpassed the marvellous style in which Liebermann succeeds in rendering the attenuated scheme of interior lighting in conjunction with extraordinary powers of sunlight painting. His gradual emancipation from tradition may be easily traced from the days of Women plucking Geese, when he was with justice called a “son of darkness”; through the “sous bois” pictures, to the present period of vivid sunlight and violet shadows across open country, sea, and the human figure.
Liebermann headed the party which revolted from the National Salon, and of the Secessionists he is the president. Similar cleavages of the young and progressive from the old and reactionary have taken place in most countries with equally important results. In Max Liebermann Germany has an artist of most exceptional gifts. “I do not seek for what is called the pictorial,” he writes, “but I would grasp nature in her simplicity and grandeur—the simplest thing and the hardest.”
