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.” [Illustration]