longer, they packed their trunks, and set out to learn from the "go-ahead neighbour." As Rome had been hitherto, so was Paris now, the high school of German art. "To Paris!" and "Painting!" were the cries throughout all Germany. CHAPTER XIV THE REVOLUTION OF THE GERMAN COLOURISTS From 1842 dates the pilgrimage of the German artists to Paris, Antwerp, and Brussels. In Delaroche, Cogniet, and Couture, in Wappers and Gallait, they believed they could discover the secrets of art which were hidden from German teachers. The history of art can scarcely offer another example of such a sudden overthrow of dogmas hitherto dominant by dogmas directly opposed to them. During the first half of the century the painters of Germany were pious men, humorous, witty, and intelligent men; they had a sharply cut profile, and so enchained the multitude by their human qualities that nobody remarked how little they understood of their craft, or that they were too superior to learn to draw correctly, held colour unchaste, and made virtues of all their failings. The next generation was condemned to learn painting during the whole of its natural life. The former were "problematic natures": beings who united with a Titanic force of will an actual achievement which is hardly worth mentioning; who regarded the mere handicraft of art as beneath their dignity; who, in their revelations to mankind, were resolved to burden their spirit as little as possible with any sensuous expression of their genius, and, above all, meant not to degrade themselves by the manual labour of learning to paint, and thereby wasting their valuable time. The latter were not ashamed of painting. By devoting themselves with vehemence to the colouring and technique of oil-painting, they accomplished the necessary revolution against the abstract idealism of the school of Cornelius. In their opulence of ideas the draughtsmen of cartoons had made a notch in the history of art by casting the technical tradition overboard. To have reinstated this as far as they could, with the aid of the French, is the peculiar merit of the generation of 1850. "_Règle générale: si vous rencontrez un bon peintre allemamd, vous pouvez le complimenter en français._" So runs the motto--not complimentary to Germany, but quite unassailable--which Edmond About prefixed to his notices on the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855.