. . .They have the value of a book; they neither falsify nor beautify anything, and they will hand down to the future an encyclopædia of types of the nineteenth century.

From the salon he went to the street, from exclusive aristocratic circles into the midst of the eddying crowd. For many years in succession Menzel was a constant visitor at the small watering-places in the Austrian and Bavarian Alps. The multitude of people at the concerts, in the garden of the restaurant, on the promenade, at the open-air services, were precisely the things to occupy his brush. The light rippled through the leaves of the trees; women, children, and well-bred men of the world listened to the music or the words of the preacher. One person leaves a seat and another takes it; everything lives and moves. Huge and lofty trees stretch out their arms, protecting the company from the sun. Unusually striking was “The Procession in Gastein”: in the centre was the priest bearing. . . Read More