7063, size sixty feet by forty. It must have taken the artist a
couple of years to paint. Who did he expect was going to buy it?
And that Christmas-hamper scene over in the corner; was it painted,
do you think, by some poor, half-starved devil, who thought he would
have something to eat in the house, if it were only a picture of
it?"
B. said he thought that the explanation was that the ancient patrons
of art were gentry with a very strong idea of the fitness of things.
For "their churches and cathedrals," said B., "they had painted all
those virgins and martyrs and over-fed angels that you see
everywhere about Europe. For their bedrooms, they ordered those -
well, those bedroom sort of pictures, that you may have noticed here
and there; and then I expect they used these victual-and-drink-
scapes for their banqueting halls. It must have been like a gin-
and-bitters to them, the sight of all that food."
In the new Pantechnicon is exhibited the modern art of Germany.
This appeared to me to be exceedingly poor stuff. It seemed to
belong to the illustrated Christmas number school of art. It was
good, sound, respectable work enough. There was plenty of colour
about it, and you could tell what everything was meant for. But
there seemed no imagination, no individuality, no thought, anywhere.
Each picture looked as though it could have been produced by anyone
who had studied and practised art for the requisite number of years,
and who was not a born fool. At all events, this is my opinion;
and, as I know nothing whatever about art, I speak without
prejudice.
One thing I have enjoyed at Munich very much, and that has been the
music. The German band that you hear in the square in London while
you are trying to compose an essay on the civilising influence of
music, is not the sort of band that you hear in Germany. The German
bands that come to London are bands that have fled from Germany, in
order to save their lives. In Germany, these bands would be
slaughtered at the public expense and their bodies given to the poor
for sausages. The bands that the Germans keep for themselves are
magnificent bands.
Munich of all places in the now united Fatherland, has, I suppose,
the greatest reputation for its military bands, and the citizens are
allowed, not only to pay for them, but to hear them. Two or three
times a day in different parts of the city one or another of them
will be playing pro bono publico, and, in the evening, they are
loaned out by the authorities to the proprietors of the big beer-
gardens.
