A POPULAR GERMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20372, 28 September 1929, Page 12

A POPULAR GERMAN.

BLACK AND WHITE ARTIST. HUMOUR AND HUMANITY. A funeral procession, in honour of Heinrich Zille, the man who captured tho spirit of Berlin and interpreted it to the satisfaction of rich and poor alike, was held i(ll that city in August.

"Tho most, popular Berliner" is too slight a description for the simple working man, printer and lithographer, who became a black-and-white artist when well on toward middle age. His death at just over 70, full of years and honours, says, a correspondent, robs the people of their hest-loyed delineator, and the children of the poor of their kindest friend. Heinrich Ziilc was that rare German contributor to the popular weeklies, a nonpolitical humorist. He took for his themes the' Berlin no foreigner ever sees. His subjects were the small boy who carries out the' bakers' rolls before school, the small girl who minds the babies and has" never known a handkerchiof, tho toothless but agile crone who wheels out Bethn's evening papers for distribution in a dilapidated perambulator, tho harassed housowife of ono room, and her lord, out of work but auspiciously cheerful.

Typical of Zille's humour is oiiq of his best-known cartoons of pro-war days depicting a voiy stout lady with basket and shawl in tho'forefront of a crowd, being pressed back by a ferocious Prussian poliosman, "Shout at mo as much as you pieaso. Hut don't touch me. I'm ticklish !"

ZilloV embarrassing attention to detail would have prohibited him the entry to tho_ polite pages of Punch or any other English weekly, but Germans loved him for his broad humanity. His first commission was given him by a member of tho Stitines family, who recognised his genius. He enjoyed it when the servants who had insisted upon his using the back stairs would not lot him leave tho kitchen until proofs of his identity hnd been established.-''" Ho related with "-pride that whoa tho war and the blockade were a£, their worst the' kindest inquiries were made 'at his door by tho. shadiest individuals, implying that if ho lacked anything front coals' to clothing, butter to potatoes,, it could be supplied quickly and without .payment. When tho revolution Came it left Zillo unchanged in his attitude toward life as ha saw it and drew ltr. Tho cheerfulness of poverty had always been his theme, and ho abated nothing of his mellow kindliness, though ho found occasion to givo more and more help to his humble friends. Berlin, as ho saw it, was harsh but'goodtempored, ungracious .ljut generous, hardworking but pleasuro-ioving, even when tho pleasure consists only in a barrelorgan in'a courtyard. "The city is'spending a great deal upon propaganda," remarks the covc-ynondent. "A volume of. Zillo reproductions would be one of the fined things : t <.ould givo away to foroigTiors."