Studio: international art (30.1904)

Reviews.

Pizarro. The group of Spanish adventurers is
shown listening to the Son of the Sun.

J. E. Millais, who at the age of sixteen painted
his Atahualpa a Prisoner of Pizarro, now in the
South Kensington Museum, was able to draw all
his inspiration from the " History of the Conquest
of Peru," by Prescott. Baca Flor has visited most
of the collections of Europe, and endeavoured to
obtain all the historic truth possible.

.This very important work—a wonderful record
of an almost forgotten race—will be his first
Exhibition picture, and perhaps the triumph of
his ambition. F. L.

CANADA.—The annual exhibition of the
Royal Canadian Academy, held this
year at Ottawa, must have impressed
all who studied it seriously with the
fact that there is in Canada a group, always
increasing, of artists, men and women, sincere in
motive, industrious, with respect for themselves and
their vocation, and intelligently seeking perfection
in their art along lines that are safe and thoroughly
in touch with modern thought. They have not
depended solely upon local conditions for their
development, but have sought to perfect them-
selves—most of them—by serious study in the
world's art centres, by travel amidst, and observation
of, the great in art of the past and of the present.

Of the original creative, purely imaginative, sub-
ject there was little except the mural decorations
for the ceiling of a large new steamer by F. S.
Challener, R.C.A., who is coming to the front in
that branch of art, and the mural decoration for a
dining-room by G. A. Reid, R.C.A., who has con-
fined himself almost exclusively to work of this
kind, recently. The landscapists were well repre-
sented by Homer Watson, R.C.A.; W. E. Aitkin-
son ; William Brymner ; J. A. Browne, A.R.C.A.;
John Hammond, R.C.A. ; Miss Gertrude Spurr,
and E. M. Morris.

Portraiture was worthily represented by the
President of the Academy, William Harris, R.C.A.,
E. WylyGrier, R.C.A., S. StricklandTully, A.R.C.A.,
Laura Muntz, R.C.A., and W. L. Foster, A.R.C.A.

A large canvas by F. MacGillivray Knowles,
Landing the Catch, was a conspicuous feature of
the exhibition—a scene in the life of the fisher-
folk which he understands and interprets so well.

180

F. Brownell, R.C.A., show:d a figure subject, The
Souvenir, and several flower subjects and landscapes.

Other works of interest were exhibited by Messrs.
E. Dyonnet, R.C.A., C. Forbes, R.C.A., W. Hope,
R.C.A., W. St. Thomas Smith, C. M. Manby, R. H.
Gagen, O. P. Stapes, F. M. Bell-Smith and Miss
Hagerty. J. G.

REVIEWS.
Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.
New edition. Edited by George C. William-
son, Litt. D. Vol. I. (London : George Bell &
Sons.) Price 21s. net.—To over-estimate the value
of this new edition of a work which has held its
own for nearly a century would be impossible.
Prom the first the Dictionary has maintained its
position, as one of the completest records in
the English language of the lives and work of
the great masters of painting and engraving of
every nationality and period. The name of its
originator, Michael Bryan, is known to every
student of art history, for with a sense of justice
all too rare in the present day, the editors of the
successive editions have never allowed their own
claims to take precedence of those of the man who
laid the first foundations of the successful enter-
prise. The original edition published in 7 816 was
revised in 1849 by Mr. J. Stanley, and it was in
its turn brought up to date in 1876 by the addition
of a supplement edited by Mr. H. Ottley; but, as
is pointed out in the Preface to the new edition,
" between the appearance of that supplement and
1884, not only had it become necessary to add a
very considerable number of names, but the whole
range of artistic knowledge and criticism had under-
gone most important and far-reaching changes, owing
to the researches of such acute critics as Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, Morelli, Hymans, Van den Branden,
Passavant, Waagen, Bode, Woltmann, Sir William
Maxwell and many others. Since the issue in
1889 of what was practically a new work, for which
Mr. Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong were mainly
responsible, reprint after reprint has been called
for, but the extraordinary progress made in the last
decade in true connoisseurship, with the very great
increase in the number of those who have not only
chosen Art as their profession, but have risen to
eminence in it, necessitated a searching revision
of the publication if it were still to maintain
its old hold on the public esteem. Many of the
articles have therefore been entirely re-written, and
accounts of all the artists of note who have recently
passed away have been added by the editor and