International studio (23.1904)

Book Reviews

and paints. So through the long day: To each
hour its light, and he the recorder of the shining pro-
cession of the hours. He exhibits the pictures to-
gether, and you can follow the magical transforma-
tion of a hayrick from sunrise to sunset. Seventeen
studies of the towers of Rouen Cathedral he made,
and each is a new version of the worn and black-
ened stone.
Reasons for Beauty. It is beautiful, and if you
ask me to explain further why it is beautiful, I can
only answer that Ruskin wrote fifty volumes to ex-
plain why things are beautiful, and that the world
is still unconvinced.
Avoidance of Satiety. The small drawing before
which I had paused answered that question and
suited my mood. I did not particularly want to
look at anything else. One’s receptive powers are
limited, and it is better to have a vivid impression of
one picture than a scrambling memory of many.
A Moment’s Monument. This picture was never
finished, and I am glad of that. It may have taken
Daubigny three-quarters of an hour, but the knowl-
edge of a lifetime is there. It is alive and unpre-
meditated, and you can trace the impulses that
moved the artist—the sudden desire to paint that
hurrying sky, those bending trees, and that bright
river. Then, as he worked the horses came in
sight, tugging the barge. Swiftly he put them in.
There was his picture complete; he worked on it
no more that day; other days passed and he let the
sketch stand. It remains one of those eager, joy-
ous things done in a mood of exaltation, and catch-
ing the exaltation of that mood. Such a picture is
good to remember.
But, as I say, to each man and woman who reads,
the opportunity for choice will come; only I am
confident that this is one of the books that we shall
all maltreat as we only maltreat the books we care
about, and that in many and many a copy phrases
will be underlined and passages scored down the
margin. It is an ugly habit, but one of the tests of
appreciation.
Merrymount. Being a Few Words on the
Derivation of the Name of the Merrymount
Press. Pages 8. Printed in two colors. Pam-
phlet. Boston: D. B. Updike, Merrymount
Press.
Every one knows of the beautiful book making
of Mr. Updike, of the Merrymount Press. Mr.
Updike has just issued a delightful little eight-page
pamphlet, with marginal rubrics and initial letters
and a charming head-piece illustrative of the
subject of the essay. It appears that the name of

the Merrymount Press is derived from the ancient
estate of an Englishman named Th. Morton, who,
with a company of friends, emigrated to New Eng-
land in 1628. This worthy pioneer is referred to
by Bradford in his history. Morton, it appears,,
settled at Wollaston, and called his house “Ma-re-
Mount,” or “Merrymount,” the name still attach-
ing to that locality. Morton, according to all ac-
counts, introduced into his new home the good old!
English sports, and, besides, he set up a Maypole',.
possibly as a protest against the gloomy fastings of
the Puritans. The Maypole is the sign of the
Merrymount Press, and, as Mr. Updike puts it,
“We regard Morton’s Maypole as a symbol of
work done cheerfully and well, and happiness found
in work-a-day things by the high aim and pleasure
in trying to attain it. For of this ideal the Maypole
of Merrymount is an emblem, and to this ideal the
Merrymount Press endeavors to be true.”
This little sample of Mr. Updike’s art is a very-
fair taste of his quality. It is nothing short of ex-
quisite in its typography, its press work and its
paper. It is one of those gems of the printer’s art
which, in time, become the pride of a bibliophile’s
collection.
Anarchism in Art. By E. Wade Cook. 8vo.
Pages 96. London, Paris, New York and Mel-
bourne. Cassell & Co., Ltd.
In the interests of British art, of criticism and the
press, the author of “Anarchism in Art” protests
against prejudice so prevalent at the present time,
which praises only what is foreign in feeling. Be-
lieving that the situation is fraught with peril to the
best interests of British art, the writer seeks in a
collection of essays to point out certain evils in art
and criticism, and to explain their underlying
causes and their bearings on the larger problems.
He briefly traces the development of art from the
time of Hogarth through the various schools, and
dwells at some length on the “new criticism,”
which received its impetus from some of the ad-
mirers of Mr. Whistler, whose judgments in art
gave rise to much derision, and to whose charge is
laid the persistent endeavors to discredit the Royal
Academy and its works. On the subject of the
“new criticism” Mr. Cook says: “There are too
many people busying themselves with art, whose
esthetic faculties are, as Tolstoi contends, atro-
phied, or have not emerged from the rudimental
stage, and their criticism, like that of a musical
critic without an ear, is only intellectual gymnas-
tics, a mere ‘dancing on paper.’ The most hope-
less form of criticism comes from those who have

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