Correspondence
A LETTER FROM LEIPZIG.
. .
To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,— _A visit to the Leipzig Fair is undoubtedly an experience. I started from London with very little information : Leipzig hitherto was mainly associated with the Tauchnitz edition of books that had so often come to my rescue on former journeys. I knew the Fair, I knew it to be the most famous' in Europe, but that is all.
On the day I left Victoria I found I was almost the only woman who was going to the Fair from England. Once I climbed into the Warsaw Express at Ostende, I was surrounded by business men of various nations, Scotch, English, Jews, French, Belgians, Dutch, all bound for the same destination.
From the moment of arrival in Leipzig your mind expands, like a concertina. The station is the vastest in Europe: Waterloo comes but a poor second : it covers I don't know how many acres of ground and swallows up I don't know how Many infinitesimal little human beings. I wandered through vast dining-halls and finally found one empty clinic and was brought an immense portion of sliced meat and vegetables and an ice double the size of one to be had in London, and for the same price.
The long arm of German organization first reached me with a white envelope stamped with two scarlet M's containing various leaflets about the Fair and a pink ticket giving me the address of the people with whom the Mess-amt hind arranged for me to lodge. I was informed among other things that my hostess was a merchant's wife, that she had electric light on her stairs and that the number of the tramway that passed her door was No. 13. That pink ticket inspired me with complete confidence as I set out into the unknown.
The town is as spacious as the station. On all hands are wide streets, impressive buildings, and great open spaces. Leipzig is impressive and the Fair as I found later is over- powering. Subconsciously I had had thoughts of Wembley and of Paris, of an Exhibition in a word self-contained in one spot and that a day or at most two would be sufficient to see all I wanted. What I found was a city of over thirty vast Fair Palaces scattered within this German Manchester, and that if, for instance, one was interested in Art, one would have to visit seven Palaces in different parts of the town before accomplishing the object one had in view.
The Ring Mess-haus, containing the British Section, is wonderful modern building seven or eight stories high.
Those who know the ways of the Fair go straight up to the top floor in the lift and then work their way doWn. Each 01 contains hundreds of compartments, where toys, or baskets furniture or glass, shop signs or aluminium ware are on vie"' Everywhere I met with courtesy, in several cases with reserved and pleasant friendliness. As for the International Exhibition of Modern European Art, housed in the Neue Grassi Museum, the goal of my journey, it deserves an arttek to itself and an abler pen than mine to describe it.
England is represented and not unworthily, but wher)
I saw the productions of the Deutsche Werkstallers, designed fw a group of artists and being manufactured and marketed v business men, with textiles, glass, pottery, silver ware, ram furniture and carpets, I realized how far we in England lave to travel still in our appreciation of modern art. Here ottling was extreme : the colours employed were subdued, Imost tender : the printed linens and the furniture would' happy with any of our beautiful antique furniture. For he first time I felt the transition from the old to the new
d been accomplished without violence, and the things, ing beautiful, restrained and sincere, would look at home ith other beautiful things no matter to what age they longed.
No one interested in Modern Applied Arts should fail to isit this Exhibition, which remains open till August. That emiany- has recovered is proved by the fact that this year he biggest buyers at the Fair have been the Germans them- ves.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A TRAVELLER IN GERMANY.
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