notion of the Russian Dadaists with which the Russian invasion presented us was turned into German by hook or crook; and the day came when the dutiful exhibit at the Lehrter Bahnhof approached the rooms of the Paris Independents. But this tolerance also aided daring people of real ability. In any other country a Klee or a Grosz could hardly have lived out his spleen so successfully. Berlin has the right atmosphere for the art of the present. Not only for a gold-brick, but also if one may say it, for a super-gold-brick, an exaggeration, a stylization, an objectivization of the gold-brick. They take the improvised Berlin as though it were a necessary fact in nature; and they build upon this as though they were dealing with the church of God. They really build, although their material is nothing but the starting point for unhindered activity. They come to Berlin because it is large, and they live here in the hotels. The mechanism of the hotel contains springs of energy. These lead to derailings, to enormities, but they favour a rhythm of speed which modern art can now make use of. One can search in vain for the like of this in other, much more favoured cities. The wealth of the traditional art cities is a restrictive antiquity. Berlin with its energy belongs to America, but lies in the middle of Europe. As a consequence the mechanization which is taken for granted in America and is not at all an incentive there, has an enchanting and a grating effect here, and is always a stimulus. There is no mechanized hinterland, rich in its particular kind of health and power, lying night beyond the gates of Berlin. These people stream into the hotels; here they do not drop their crudenesses like the provincials in Paris, but they make themselves as motley as possible in the mosaic of the metropolis. Berlin's sensation-hunger is never appeased. Coarse food is preferred. Van Gogh was not recognized elsewhere so soon and so spontaneously, and has not had so enduring an effect in any other country. Manet and his fellows were taken up by the collectors and received all public honours; Van Gogh belonged to the family. There is hardly a contemporary painter between Liebermann and Kokoschka in North Germany who does not owe something to the Hollander. Liebermann freed himself with his help from the remains of Israel; and Kokoschka overcame by the same aid the feebleness of his early work in Vienna, and aimed at the remarkable concentration of his romanticism. What they prized in Van Gogh—it is another matter
