Studio: international art (71.1917)

Reviews

REVIEWS.

Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Woodcuts
in ike British Museum. By Laurence Binyon.
(London: British Museum.) 20s. net. Col-
lectors of Japanese colour-prints will especially
welcome this volume with its critical and well-
considered Introduction. The description of
each plate has been systematically and carefully
carried out, and should enable the collector to
trace the origin and meaning of many of his
treasures. To this end the appended facsimile
reproductions of artists' signatures are of distinct
value. With the exception of the frontispiece,
which has been excellently reproduced in the
original colours, the illustrations in half-tone
cannot be considered to be satisfactory. This
is chiefly due to the fact that they have been
printed upon a quality of Japanese paper quite
unsuitable to the purpose.

Model Drawing, Geometrical and Perspective,
with Architectural Examples. By C. Octavius
Wright and W. Arthur Rudd, M.A. (Cam-
bridge University Press.) 6s. net. — This
thoroughly practical manual deserves the atten-
tion of all teachers of drawing, many of whom
have no doubt arrived at the same conclusion
as the authors, that the use of the ordinary
apparatus of model-drawing—the cube, the
sphere, etc.—" fails in most cases to arouse the
interest of the student or to inspire him with
the imagination which is essential to the develop-
ment of artistic talent." The method pursued
in this textbook—which, though it makes use
of architectural forms, is not a textbook of
architectural draughtsmanship—is to be com-
mended as entirely rational, beginning as it
does with the simplest of all linear constructions,
the straight line, and successively treating of
the various figures composed of straight lines,
after which the circle, the sphere, and other
curved-line figures are dealt with. The second
part is occupied with perspective drawing, and
the subject is treated in a way which will com-
mand the sympathy of the student instead of
that aversion which it usually excites. The
diagrams, numbering more than three hundred,
are throughout admirably clear.

The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein. En-
larged facsimiles of the original wood-engravings
by Hans Liitzelberger in the first complete
edition: Lyons, 1547. (London: privately
printed). The enlargements in this edition of

Holbein's famous series of engravings have
been made by photographic means, the average
size being about 3! by 4f inches, and comprise
all the cuts designed by Holbein with two or
three unimportant exceptions. They include
also two designs from the Lyons edition of 1562—
The Bride and The Bridegroom—which, according
to Dr. Lippmann, were probably not drawn by
Holbein himself on the wood. The cuts are
accompanied by the Scripture texts and old
French verses which appeared in the 1562
edition, together with English renderings of
the latter, some from Quaritch's reprint of 1868,
and others made by Mr. A. K. Sabin, the printer
of the present edition, the general get-up of
which is admirable. The number of copies is
limited to two hundred, and the reprint is
edited by Mr. F. H. Evans, of 32 Rosemont
Road, Acton, from whom copies are obtainable.

Lettering. By Thomas Wood Stevens.
(London : George G. Harrap and Co.) 7s. 6d.
net. " To present good standards in styles
applicable to many fields of work, together
with brief instructions regarding the drawing
of letters," is the aim of this excellent manual.
Besides containing a great variety of alphabets
and specimen pages, gathered from numerous
sources, it provides the student with many
useful hints as to the formation of letters,
laying out, and so forth. The book itself is an
example of good typography.

The Art of the Illustrator. By Percy V.
Bradshaw. (London: Press Art School,
Forest Hill.) The object of this publication,
which consists of a series of portfolios each
containing half a dozen reproductions of a
drawing by a well-known artist in various
stages of progress, is to set before the student
of drawing—and especially the student whose
ambition it is to draw for the Press—examples of
the methods pursued by some of the leading illus-
trators and cartoonists of the day. Mr. F. H.
Townsend, Mr. Bernard Partridge, Mr. Frank
Reynolds, Mr. Harry Rountree, Mr. Lawson
Wood, Mr. Claude Shepperson, Mr. Heath
Robinson, and other workers of prominence
in the field of the graphic arts have exe-
cuted special drawings for the series, and as
the construction of the drawing is presented in
its successive stages the student is enabled to
follow the methods of these practitioners without
difficulty. The idea has much to commend it
as an aid to the practical study of composition.

39