blow which the European explosion dealt to art; but it would not be fair to refer to him in this way. The facts which he summons do not contain the discipline with which they are placed crudely before us, the fanaticism of this circus-director, as he has named himself in one of his graphic series. After an art which devoted itself to conquering the object, in our days a method of presentation must be used which lets us be conquered through an m51ght into the frightful meaning of our objects.
Karl Hofer's good disposition and easy manners are more European. He is not for this reason less German, but of the other sort. We have always had Grünewalds and Maréeses. Beckmann is helped and endangered by his one-sidedness, Hofer by the German humanists' ideal of assembling every beautiful element in other cultures and adorning the northern content of our ideas with southern vegetation. In harsh words: the ideal of an artist, attempted hundreds of times before Marées and almost always without success; a very significant ideal to-day when every Tom, Dick, and Harry is puffed up with individualism and every notion is right if it has never been held before. Nothing is less eclectic than the art of this humanist. In spite of its many evident relationships to many tendencies of the times. None of these tendencies weakens him. After every fecundation he is left richer or more collected than before. Whoever surveys Hofer's already extensive development cannot fail to recognize its logical organism, and will marvel most of all at the discipline of his searches. In general effectiveness Hofer's discipline stands higher than that of Beckmann. Richer possibilities hold him back from all impasses. It remains for the future to show whether he can summon Beckmann's intensity in dealing with a definite content. Up to a certain degree he has moved the other way from Beckmann, beginning in specifically German channels, in the vicinity of Böcklin, and arriving with the help of Marées from the narrow into the open. Beckmann was in Paris a few months and was able to get very little from this outer sphere; and I believe he would have fared badly had he not sealed himself up so thoroughly. There are such people; there must be. Hofer was in Rome and Paris for several years, led an industrious hermit’s life throughout, but kept his eyes open. From his post as lonely observer he joined in all the attempts to extend Impressionism, and made the most highly personal contributions to the turn
