II.

The Germans have achieved some of their greatest successes in the art of figure painting with subjects derived from that legendary lore in which their country is so rich. Among the artists whom this world of phantoms has enchanted, probably the foremost is William Kray. he is no stranger to the art lovers of America, for his paintings have long been popular in this country, and are to be found in most of our prominent private collections. He was born in Berlin, and began his studies there, afterward residing for a long time in Rome and Venice. Ultimately he returned to Germany and ssettled in Vienna, where he speedily won distinction. In "The Dance of the Will o' the Wisps" he renders a poetic version of the old legend of the wildfires, the gleaming spirits of marsh and fen. The late Charles Chaplin was born at Andelys, in the Department of the Eure, France, of an English father and a French mother, in 1825. At the age of fourteen he became a pupil of the painter Drolling in Paris, and settled in Auvergne to become a landscape painter. But the figure had an irresistible attraction for him, and like Kray, who also commenced by painting landscapes, he gradually abandoned his first choice of pursuit for the nobler and more enticing one. His

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Chapter 2 Text

Wilhelm Kray