its being given full scope to the end by constructive work from a _milieu_ that was not his own. Until his fortieth year he had celebrated the glorious past of his country. When, with the death of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, a great and decisive turn was given to the politics of the Prussian state--one which put an end to the stagnation of civil life in Prussia and Germany, and ushered in a new and brilliant period for the realm and the heirs of Friedrich--the painter of Friedrich the Great became the painter of the new realm. After he had already, in the first half of the century, placed reality on the throne of art in the place of rhetoric and a vague ideal, he went one step further in the direction of keen and direct observation, and now painted what he saw around him--the stream of palpitating life. "The Coronation of King Wilhelm at Königsberg" is the great and triumphant title-page to this section of his art. The effects of light, the red tones of the uniforms, the shimmering white silk dresses, the surging of the mass of people, the perfect ease with which all the personages are individualised, the princes, the ministers, the ambassadors, the men of learning, the instantaneousness in the movement of the figures, the absolutely unforced and yet subtle and pictorial composition, render this painting no picture of ceremonies, in the traditional sense of the phrase, but a work of art at once intimate and august in the impression which it makes. In the picture "King Wilhelm setting out to join the Army"--the representation of the thrilling moment, on the afternoon of 31st July 1870, when the King drove along the linden avenue to the railway station--this phase, which he began with the Coronation picture, was brought to a close. Everything surges and moves, speaks and breathes, and glows with the palpitating life which vibrates through all in this moment of patriotic excitement. But the painter's course led him further. [Illustration: ADOLF MENZEL.]