International studio (48.1913)

Reviews and Notices

and Co.) ros. dd. net.-—Prof. Blomfield’s in-
teresting work, though intended mainly for students,
deals with a subject which is of great importance
to all who are interested in fine draughtsmanship.
Many reproductions of excellent drawings ac-
company the text, including some fine examples by
Piranesi. At the present time there are a number
of exceedingly accomplished draughtsmen and
etchers both in this country and on the continent
whose architectural drawings are well worth inclu-
sion in a volume which might supplement this
valuable one of Prof. Blomfield’s by dealing with
work by contemporary artists.
Portrait Medals of Italian Artists of the Re-
naissance. By G. F. Hill. (London: P. Lee
Warner.) i6r. net.—The beautiful and delicate
Italian medals of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries well deserve a volume devoted entirely
to them, so great is their historic as well as their
aesthetic value, but few will be disposed to cavil
with Mr. Hill for supplementing the examples he
gives of them in his finely painted and charmingly
illustrated volume with other portraits of the same
period. True his reason for doing so, that the
latter will be welcome to those who find objects so
small as medals a trial to their patience, is, to say
the least of it, inadequate, but Raphael’s exquisite
sketches of the head and hands of Bramante, the
portraits of Titian from the Prado and Stockholm
galleries, and Memlinc’s Niccolo di Forzore
Spinelli—the last, by the way, not even by an
Italian master—are so fascinating that no con-
noisseur could wish them away. In his selection
of actual medals for reproduction, Mr. Hill explains
that he has been guided solely by an iconographical
intention, that is to say, he has given more thought
to the accuracy of the likeness in them than to
their technique, and he goes on to remark that
“ the Italian medal is a truly significant reflection
of the Italian character, the art of striking them
having been first developed in Italy because of the
relation of that country to antiquity. To bring the
great men of the past before their eyes was the
main object of the collectors of the Renaissance,
and the next step was obvious : to follow the
example of those great men and have your own
portrait put upon a coin.” Hence the evolution of
the profile likeness of the Italian medal, which was
soon devoloped to a high degree of excellence.
Die Ideale Landschaft. By Dr. Joseph Gramm.
(Freiburg-im-Breisgau : Herdersche Verlagshand-
lung.) 2 vols. 36 mark.—With characteristic
German thoroughness, Dr. Gramm, who is one of
the professors at the University of Freiburg-im-

Breisgau, traces the evolution of landscape art from
its first beginnings in classic times to the end of the
sixteenth century, leaving its later developments
for future consideration. He opens his most
learned dissertation on the general principles of
the interpretation of nature with Goethe’s oft-
quoted words : “ Wir wissen von keiner Welt als
im Bezug auf den Menschen; wir wollen keine
Kunst, als die ein Abdruck dieses Bezugs ist.”
Having thus as it were struck the key-note of his
work, he proceeds to analyse the relations between
nature and her intrepreters, to define the difference
between the ideal and the real, to dissect the ele-
ments of composition, and enumerate the materials
employed by artists, leaving in the end, it must be
confessed, a somewhat confused impression on the
mind of the reader. Fortunately the actual history
of landscape art is less profound, and the well-
chosen illustrations which form the second volume
serve as an excellent commentary on it, although
the quaint supplementary designs, in which the
compositions are intersected with lines purporting
to indicate the preliminary conceptions in the minds
of the painters, are not altogether edifying.
The Bells and other Poems. By Edgar Allan
Poe. Illustrated by Edmund Dulac. (London :
Hodder and Stoughton.) 15J. net.—One opens
this book with some curiosity. Mr. Dulac has been
one of our most successful illustrators of comedy and
fairy-tale in colour, he has the lightness, gaiety, and
sense of grace which make him very happy in the
illustrating of everything where these qualities are
required. He is very successful with an eighteenth-
century setting, for there is a way in which it might
be said that as an artist he descends from Watteau.
We find Mr. Dulac in this book departing from
the styles most suited to book illustration; and
after the fashion of too many illustrators this
season, he ventures into complication of colour
which does not lend itself to the requirements of a
book in the lap. It is strange, too, that this mis-
take intrudes an air of commonplace in the illus-
trations, most unexpected in work from this artist.
Painting is one art, book embellishment another.
Proof is not wanting here that Mr. Dulac is capable
of a profound note in design, but few of his designs
have a chance against the dye-like colours in which
the refinement of his compositions is destroyed.
The cover of this volume is delightful in its
scheme of gold upon grey, if somewhat dainty for
the sombre genius of the poetry it contains.
Hours of Gladness. By M. Maeterlinck. Illus-
trated by E. J. Detmold. (London : George Allen
and Co., Ltd.) 2 if. net.—We must confess that
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