International studio (34.1908)

Reviews and Notices

its red cloth binding gold tooled; and the illustra-
tions are great successes.
A Catalogue Raisonne of the Works of the most
eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century.
Based on the Work of John Smith. By C.
Hofstede de Groot. Translated and edited by
Edward G. Hawke. (London : Macmillan.) 251-.
net.—Great indeed must have been the courage
required to embark on such an enterprise as the
translation and bringing up to date of John Smith’s
famous Catalogue Raisonne of 17 th century
Dutch, Flemish, and French painters, which for
more than half a century has held its own as the
most important work of the kind in existence.
There can, however, be no doubt that Dr.
Hofstede de Groot has exceptional qualifications
for dealing with his Herculean task. He has
spent no less than sixteen years in travelling from
place to place in Europe to examine the pictures
accessible to the student, and in his first volume
he has supplemented Smith’s selection of Dutch
masters—which, as he justly observes, was merely
fortuitous—with all the other painters of eminence
of the 17th century who were natives of Holland,
reserving the French and Flemish for future con-
sideration. The work of the Dutch connoisseur
has, moreover, been in its turn skilfully edited,
his translator having wisely endeavoured to pre-
serve the exact wording of Smith’s descriptions,
restoring much that is omitted in the German
edition, including the useful references to. engravers.
Particulars are also added of recent sales in Paris
and London, as well as details concerning master-
pieces in New York that are not mentioned by
De Groot, so that the English version is really far
more complete than the foreign one and will be
of the greatest possible value to owners of pictures
and collectors.
British Trees. Drawn and described by Rex
Vicat Cole. (London : Hutchinson & Co.)
2 vols., 345. net.—Trees arid their Life-Plistories.
By Percy Groom, M.A., D.Sc. Illustrated from
Photographs by Henry Irving. (London : Cassell
& Co.) 25X. net.—Having quite recently referred
to Mr. Rex Vicat Cole’s studies of tree-forms,
and reproduced various examples of them, we
shall content ourselves with giving an idea of
the scope of these two stout volumes, the out-
come of years of patient and intelligent study.
The trees of which drawings are given com-
prise practically the whole of those which are
now commonly regarded as indigenous to Britain,
such as the oak, elm, ash, birch, maple, hornbeam,
chestnut, beech, plane, the poplars, alder, buck-
170

thorn, the willows, yew, various species of conifers
and of the rose tribe, etc. Numerous details of
each—venation, inflorescence, etc.—are drawn with
a degree of precision which would justify their in-
clusion in a botanical text-book, but notwithstanding
this particularity we discern throughout them the
hand and eye of the true artist, and when we come
to the author’s drawings and paintings of the entire
tree—sometimes alone, and at other times forming
features in a complete landscape composition—we
see at once the value of this careful study of detail.
The descriptive notes which accompany the illus-
trations show an intimate knowledge of plant
morphology, but planned as the work is, as a book
of reference for artists and designers, it is wisely
kept as free as possible from technical expressions.
Mr. Groom’s work, on the other hand, appears to
cater primarily for the needs of botanical students,
although he has by avoiding technicalities wherever
possible kept in view the claims of the general
reader with but limited botanical knowledge. The
introduction supplies all the information that is
necessary for an understanding of the descriptive
portion of the book, where what may be called the
“biographies” of the numerous kinds of trees
selected for illustration are given. Though the
work consists of one volume only, it covers a wide
range, and the illustrations, of which there are
more than five hundred, all after photographs, are
excellent. A useful feature of the work are the
analytical tables by which a particular species may
be identified with facility.
The Poems of Coleridge. With Illustrations by
Gerard Metcalfe. (London : John Lane.)
ioi\ 6d. net.—The artist who could fully interpret
the virile but weird originality and subtle charm
of the poems of Coleridge, might well lay claim to
genius little inferior to that of their author, who
stands almost alone amongst the great writers of
the modern renaissance of literature. That Mr.
Metcalfe—who appears to have sought inspiration
in the work of men so diverse as Blake, Sir John
Millais, Byam Shaw, Edmund Sullivan, and A.
Garth Jones—should not have achieved full success
in a task that might well appal the most gifted, is
no discredit to him ; and it must be conceded that
in some of his smaller illustrations he has given
proof of no little sympathetic intuition. The
“Lines to a beautiful Spring in a Valley,” “But
in a Garden Bower the Bride and Bridesmaids
singing are,” and “To walk together to the Kirk
in goodly company,” are full of suggestive charm ;
but in the full-page drawings for the “ Ancient
Mariner,” “ Christabel,” and “Fire Furnace and