MODERN PAINTING IN AUSTRIA February last, the lots numbered 487 (two-thirds of which were small pencil studies) and realised 181,000 Kronen. There one came across many » incunabula » of modern painting. Rudolf von Alt is now on the road towards the attainment of international celebrity, after living out his long lite in bourgeois modesty, content with nothing more than mere local appreciation. Indeed, of recent years the Berlin historical exhibitions have recognised his rank. He was the great, the real recorder of Vienna’s doings, just as Adolf von Menzel was the faithful chronicler of Berlin. Two diverse, yet at the same time parallel natures, which an essentially historical century created its representative artists. Menzel, as a son of politico-historical Prussia, as a contemporary of Ranke, depicted the story, internai and external, of his native land ; while Alt, product of a Southern land full of charm of form and colour, native of a delightfully situated art-city, became, before all else, the delineator of his own locality, its landscapes and its views. When, on the 3rd of April, 1897, nineteen young artists came together, to found the Viennese « Secession, » they chose as their leader Rudolf von Alt, and he accepted the title. They found him young enough, and he felt himself not too old to be young in their society. Meanwhile the » Secession » had become absolutely indispensable in Vienna. A too businesslike point of view prevailed at the Künstler-haus, manifesting itself in the shape of something like a protective duty on art. For many years the exhibitions had prohibited the admission of all foreign contributions, in order to preserve the market for the home artist. Thus the great public was kept in complete ignorance of the various transformations which Western art was undergoing. Viennese painting might continue to hobble peacefully along the old, well-worn track ! International exhibi-tions were few and far between, but the third of these (in the spring of 1894) gave some sign of what was going on in the West. This sign came, not from France-which still sent nothing but officially-approved works, naught of Manet and his school-but from England. For, in addition to Leighton, Herkomer and Alma-Tadema (whose Fredegonde was bought by the reigning Prince of Liechtenstein for 15,000 gulden, and bequeathed later to the Modern Gallery), one saw here for the first time the » Boys of Glasgow « – Brown, Cameron, Reid M urray, Pirie, Macaulay Stevenson, and others, whose open-air work caused a complete upset of existing ideas. The storm thus raised came to a climax in December of the same year, when the entire « Secession » of Munich appeared as guests in the Künstlerhaus. The old-fashioned public A iv
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