Berliners celebrate Heinrich Zille

"Global culture, by its nature, focuses on big names and rankings, to our general impoverishment. Some years ago John Willett, a scholar of German culture, contemplating the Secessionists, wrote about the dangers of embracing “a national or parochial view of art — as even the most enlightened are sometimes tempted to do,” because “as you narrow your horizon in this way you no longer judge by the highest standards.”

That’s right.

But Zille reminds us of another lesson, that high standards are not the only standards that count when grappling with legacies like his. After all, the essence of his pictures was to show how monotonous life would be if we only cared about what’s great in the world and not about everything local and particular and even sometimes untranslatable that actually makes life rich..."