In the spring of 1886 the Prince sent his teacher a sketch for criticism.  Salzmann wired his opinion to Potsdam, and a telegram came back, “What does ‘wind too anxious’ mean? is it so stormily painted that you shuddered at it, or is it not stormy enough?” Salzmann is also authority for the statement that the Prince sent in a sea-piece to the annual Berlin Art Exhibition.  It was placed ready to be judged, but suddenly disappeared.  The Emperor William, it appeared, had decided that it would not do for a future Emperor to compete with professional artists or run the risk of sarcastic public criticism.  Naturally since he came to the throne the Emperor has never had time to cultivate his talent as a painter, but has always fed his eyes and mind on the best kind of painting, and brings his sense of form and colour to bear on everything he does or has a voice in.

That the Emperor’s own taste in painting is of a “classical” kind in a very catholic sense was shown by the personal interest he took in getting together and having brought to Berlin the exhibition of old English masters in 1908.  At his request the English owners of many of these treasures agreed to lend them for exhibition in Germany, submitting thereby to the risk of loss or damage, displaying an unselfish disposition to aid in elevating the taste of a foreign people, and at the same time giving Germans a better and more tangible idea of the nation which could produce artists of such nobility of feeling and marvellous technical capacity.  The Emperor paid several visits to the exhibition and thousands of Berlin folk followed his example, so that the beauty of the works of Gainsborough, Raeburn, Lawrence, Hoppner, and Romney was for months a topic of enthusiastic conversation in the capital.

Encouraged by this success, the Emperor next caused a similar exhibition of French painters to be arranged.  The Rococo period was now chosen, many lovely specimens of the art of Watteau, Lancret, David, Vigee, Lebrun, Fragonnard, Greuze, and Bonnat were procured, and again the Berliner was given an opportunity not only of enjoying an artistic treat of a delightful kind, but of comparing the impressions made on him by the art spirits of two other nations.  The opening of this French exhibition was made by the Emperor the occasion of emphasizing his conciliatory feelings towards France, for he attended an evening entertainment at the French Embassy given specially in honour of the occasion.

A third art exhibition followed in 1910—­that of two hundred American oil paintings brought to Berlin and shown in the Royal Academy of Arts on the Panser Platz.  They included works by Sargent, Whistler, Gari Melchior, Leon Dabo, Joseph Pennell, and many others.  The suggestion for this exhibition did not proceed from the Emperor, but in all possible ways he gave the exhibition his personal support.  On returning from inspecting it he telegraphed to the American Ambassador in Berlin, Dr. D. J. Hill, to express the pleasure he had derived from what he had seen.  Nor was such a mark of admiration surprising.  The exhibition was nothing short of a revelation, going far to dissipate the German belief—­perhaps the English belief also—­that America possesses no body of painters of the first rank.