DOI Heft:
American section
DOI Artikel:Book reviews
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28250#0403
Book Reviews
Copyright 1905, 1906, by The Century Company
WING OF FRANCIS I, ILLUSTRATION FROM THE CHATEAUX OF
BLOIS TOURAINE (THE CENTURY COMPANY)
France to illustrate the book on “ The Chateaux of
Touraine,” by Maria Hornor Lansdale, which
reappears from the Century Magazine in delightful
holiday dress. The volume, which is a stout royal
octavo, is a credit to the Devinne Press. The text
is printed in black, with red initials, folios and
running heads. The binding is done in dull green
cloth, with a chateau tower stamped in gold and
colours on the cover. The matter of the book is the
evocation among the old walls of the personal histo-
ries which have aided their fame. The illustra-
tions are plentiful, some forty excellent photographs
being reproduced in black-and-white and tint and
sixteen reproductions in colour being shown of Mr.
Guerin’s work. Of the twelve chateaux described,
he gives us drawings of eight in Touraine—Chinon,
Loches, Langeais, Amboise, Luynes, Chenonceaux,
Azay-le-Rideau and Chaumont; and three in the
adjacent Province of Orleanais—Blois, Chambord
and Cheverney.
The subjects are well suited to a hand trained
in architectural rendering. And the artist has here
as elsewhere found himself at ease in a restriction
to flat tones of a few low-keyed colours. He shows
imagination in these sketches and a cleverness in
atmospheric feeling. It may be that he does not
scruple to ring the changes on a trick or two, but
he does it so well that one is not inclined to grow
captious about it. A long reach of pale, transparent
shadow, as in moonlit mist, set off by a sharp pat-
tern of warm if subdued light, is a favorite device of
his in handling washes. He has resorted to this
scheme in perhaps a somewhat obvious manner in
the study of Blois from the town. The street, with
its carts and cars and passers-by, ended by trees
and flanked by the rising wall, is cool and overcast.
The wing of Francis I, rising to fill the space behind,
is of a strikingly palpable grey pink. There again
in Loches: the wall of enceinte is the shadow of
forty-five degrees, a dulcet grey, against a tinge of
faintly red light; or, with more depth of contrast,
in Chenonceaux with Chapel. But if we go astray
on such a chase, we shall come upon the quiet
dawning light of the Chambord drawing, or the
delicate diffusion of shade in the view of Amboise
from over the Loire, with the Japanese fishing scene
XXIII
Copyright 1905, 1906, by The Century Company
WING OF FRANCIS I, ILLUSTRATION FROM THE CHATEAUX OF
BLOIS TOURAINE (THE CENTURY COMPANY)
France to illustrate the book on “ The Chateaux of
Touraine,” by Maria Hornor Lansdale, which
reappears from the Century Magazine in delightful
holiday dress. The volume, which is a stout royal
octavo, is a credit to the Devinne Press. The text
is printed in black, with red initials, folios and
running heads. The binding is done in dull green
cloth, with a chateau tower stamped in gold and
colours on the cover. The matter of the book is the
evocation among the old walls of the personal histo-
ries which have aided their fame. The illustra-
tions are plentiful, some forty excellent photographs
being reproduced in black-and-white and tint and
sixteen reproductions in colour being shown of Mr.
Guerin’s work. Of the twelve chateaux described,
he gives us drawings of eight in Touraine—Chinon,
Loches, Langeais, Amboise, Luynes, Chenonceaux,
Azay-le-Rideau and Chaumont; and three in the
adjacent Province of Orleanais—Blois, Chambord
and Cheverney.
The subjects are well suited to a hand trained
in architectural rendering. And the artist has here
as elsewhere found himself at ease in a restriction
to flat tones of a few low-keyed colours. He shows
imagination in these sketches and a cleverness in
atmospheric feeling. It may be that he does not
scruple to ring the changes on a trick or two, but
he does it so well that one is not inclined to grow
captious about it. A long reach of pale, transparent
shadow, as in moonlit mist, set off by a sharp pat-
tern of warm if subdued light, is a favorite device of
his in handling washes. He has resorted to this
scheme in perhaps a somewhat obvious manner in
the study of Blois from the town. The street, with
its carts and cars and passers-by, ended by trees
and flanked by the rising wall, is cool and overcast.
The wing of Francis I, rising to fill the space behind,
is of a strikingly palpable grey pink. There again
in Loches: the wall of enceinte is the shadow of
forty-five degrees, a dulcet grey, against a tinge of
faintly red light; or, with more depth of contrast,
in Chenonceaux with Chapel. But if we go astray
on such a chase, we shall come upon the quiet
dawning light of the Chambord drawing, or the
delicate diffusion of shade in the view of Amboise
from over the Loire, with the Japanese fishing scene
XXIII