International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

A Glance at the Holiday A rt Books

upwards of fifty plates, including a dozen in
photogravure.
With an introductory essay by T. Martin Wood
appears a valuable addition to the Newnes series,
“Modern Master Draughtsmen,” in a volurne of
“Drawings of Rossetti.” (Imported by Charles
Scribner’s Sons, New York, 4to, $2.50 net.)
Some of the plates display the dramatic intensity
of Rossetti’s work overmastering at times his
patience of technical requirement. Such an instance
is the superb Death oj Lady Macbeth, a drawing
wonderful in its imaginative vigour, marred by a
figure of false proportions at the left. Hamlet and
Ophelia holds the interest,. then charms it, then
raises doubts upon the Hamlet, and finally leaves
one in trivial perplexity over his inexplicable
posture. Particularly interesting are the study for
Mary at the Door of Simon, and the finished draw-
ing. The figure of the Magdalene changes from
a fervid recklessness to the calm of high resolution;
the lover from an appealing effeminacy to a self-
assured seductiveness. The better known later
work does not accustom us to such a fresh handling
and simplicity as appears in the children’s faces in
YouShould ILaveWept Her Yesterday. Buttbe best
of the entire forty-nine as an example of free and
graceful expression of feeling is the Design for a
Bailad.
Uniform with the above in the series is a volurne
of “Drawings of John M. Swan, R.A.” The selec-
tion comprises a rnost interesting representation
of the artist’s notes in his deservedly best-known
endeavour, the painting of animals. Mr. A. L.
Baldry in a short introduction recalls the long,
enthusiastic but deliberate apprenticeship under
Gerome, and later, when this versatile man’s gifts
turned him toward sculpture, under Fremiet,
Swan pursued his interest in animal life so thor-
oughly as to work under the best anatomists he
could reach in Paris, men like Gervais and Duval,
and built a firm foundation for his art in the dis-
secting room. He made his appeal for recognition
late, when he feit reasonably assured of his powers,
and received it hrst from Holland. Mr. Baldry
gives him especial praise for avoiding the too
common falsity of enduing beasts with human
sensibilities. Certainly in this delightful work-
manlike series of sketches—all but three of animals,
and mainly of the feline species—there is no sus-
picion of mock Sentiment. Several drawings are
in colour and so reproduced.
A new edition of Kenyon Cox’s essays in art
criticism, “Old Masters and New” (Fox, Duflield
& Co., New York, 8vo,$2.5o net), recently reviewed


THE MISSES HORNECK
EROM “SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE
ROYAL ACADEMY” (CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS)
in these columns, makes its appearance in holiday
garb with appropriate illustrations added.
A most uncommon book is Mr. Russell Sturgis’s
“Study of the Artist’s Way of Working in the Vari-
ous Handicrafts and Arts of Design.” (Dodd,Mead
& Co., New York, 4to, 2 vols., $15.00 net). He
gives a brief description of the technique of all the
arts practised by man or savage down to the nine-
teenth Century—at least we call no omission to
mind in writing—and even includes in a chapter
on the “Ignored Fine Arts” some discussion of
fireworks and illumination, costume, the clance
and stage-setting. Though the work is copious
each department is despatched succinctly without
overburdening detail and not without occasional
expression of personal judgments and speculation.
To the lay reader with an interest in art generally
and in the result, as a whole, of artistic thought and
instinct in their various expressions, this book will
prove a short cut to an art vocabulary and an
aroused curiosity. Typographically the volumes
are handsome, not to say luxurious, and the
abundant illustrations are chosen with fitness.
Taxile Doat, of the Sevres Manufactory, France,
has written a practical treatise on the making of
fine porcelain and gres, which, translated from the

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