![Anselm Feuerbach - The Symposium (Second Version) [1871-74]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7424/16537224872_68b3da1ac5_o.jpg)
Anselm Feuerbach (Speyer, September 12, 1829 - Venice, January 4, 1880) was the leading claccicist painter of the German 19th-century school. He was steeped in classic knowledge, and his figure compositions have the statuesque dignity and simplicity of Greek art. He was the first to realise the danger arising from contempt of technique, that mastery of craftsmanship was needed to express even the loftiest ideas, and that an ill-drawn coloured cartoon can never be the supreme achievement in art
[Alte und Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin - Oil on canvas, 750 x 400 cm]