Anything Whatsoever

He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.

Love and delight therein are better teachers of the art of painting than compulsion is.

To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing whatsoever that may be chosen.

Thus spake immortal Albrecht Duerer who could and did portray all visible things whatsoever which were chosen by his often niggling patrons. Last week in his native city--quaint, medieval, storied Nuremberg--men paused to remember that Albrecht Duerer died there just four hundred years ago. They prowled up the steep stairs and round the drafty rooms of Duerer's tall house near the Castle Nuremberg. They viewed a great, commemorative collection of his works, and marveled how, at a patron's whim, he could crowd a mighty canvas with all imaginable detail or turn to portray with simple, moving perfection two Praying Hands.

At Berlin the speaker's rostrum of the Reichstag was surmounted with a wreath of laurel leaves, to honor Painter-Goldsmith-Etcher Albrecht Duerer. Upon the desk of the President of the Reichstag stood, for a day, the Christ-like portrait which Artist Duerer painted of himself.

A second laurel wreath was placed upon the grave of Duerer, in St. John's

Cemetery, Nuremberg, last week, by Common Councilman Herr Doktor Wagner. Drawing a deep breath, he declared: "Proudly Nuremberg calls him Son and Master in the same breath! Today we place a wreath upon this silent hill. Ach! Vita brevis, ars aeterna [Oh, Life is short (but), Art eternal]."