Novelist Theodor Fontane (1890) The great German novelist Theodor Fontane (1819-1898), shown in this 1890 photo, was a friend and admirer of an artist whose most creative period also spanned the Bismarckian and Wilhelmine eras: Max Liebermann (1847-1935). Both men fully deserve their reputation as icons of high bourgeois culture. The two were also alike in that each adapted a style of realism that suited his own personal taste, unique talents, and, not least, ambivalent attitude towards the social and cultural values of the day. Photo by J.C. Schaarwächter.