The truth, of course, is that _everything_ modern is a development of _something_ ancient, that _nothing_ exists _unrelated_. Art is as _continuous_ as everything else in life and nature. One thing flows inevitably out of another. * * * * * Sorolla and Zoloaga are the children of Velasquez. Puvis de Chavannes may seem nearer Raphael and the Italian Primitives than Degas and Manet, but he is simply the fruition of one collateral line, while Degas is the fruition of another, and Manet of another--_they are all painters_, and the art of painting admits endless variations in theory and technic. * * * * * It is, therefore, true that every modern experiment, however strange, may trace its genealogy to the Old Masters and through them to the Primitives, and through them to the Cave Painters. So that when a Munich artist argues that the strange heads of Jawlensky and the still stranger compositions of Kandinsky are based upon the best there is in Italian art, the proposition in its broad significance may be conceded and plenty of room be still left for startling differences between the art of Venice in the sixteenth century and that of Munich in the twentieth. * * * * * There is, however, some slight but tangible foundation for the assertion that the work of the extreme men of Munich is closer to that of the Old Masters than the work of the extreme men of Paris, in that most of the former paint more _solidly_ and _substantially_, while most of the latter paint more _lightly_ and _superficially_--just about the difference that exists between the two cities, the two environments. The worker in Munich cannot help being influenced by the _German_ atmosphere, the worker in Paris cannot help being influenced by the _French_--in fact each is where he is because he finds the particular atmosphere congenial. * * * * * “The New Artists’ Federation,” in Munich, was founded in January, 1909, by Adolf Erbslöh, Alexej von Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Kanoldt, Alfred Kubin, Gabriele Münter, Marianna von Werefkin, Heinrich Schnabel, and Oskar Wittenstein. During the first year Paul Baum, Wladimir von Bechtejeff, Erma Bossi, Karl Hofer, Moissey Koga, and Albert Sacharoff joined. Paul Baum and Karl Hofer soon resigned their membership. In 1910 the Frenchmen, Pierre Girieud and Le Fauconnier, became members, and in 1911 Franz Marc and Otto Fischer, followed in 1912 by Alexander Mogilewsky. The first exhibition was held in the winter of 1909 in the Modern Gallery, Munich. Indignation and derisive laughter, and insults from the press were the outward result. Still the seed scattered was not lost. Similar exhibitions were held in many cities of Germany and Switzerland. Everywhere they met with opposition, but also made some friends at each place.