International studio (51.1913/1914)

Book Reviews

OOK REVIEWS
French Colour Prints of the Eigh-
teenth Century. With an Introduc-
tory Essay by Malcolm C. Salaman.
(J. B. Lippincott Co.) $12.00.
This book is a delightful visitor to our reviewing
table this month. It is illustrated with fifty
attractive reproductions, selected from the many
great examples of the period. Through these
charming pages flit the butterflies of the amourous
and vainglorious court of Le Grand Monarque,
and we see in retrospective fancy the gilt and tin-
sel, the license and levity, the luxury and idleness
of the years when France was pluming her feathers
before her mirror with Vanity Fair for her
audience.
Portraiture was naturally the most remunera-
tive occupation of the artists of this superficial and
pleasure-loving epoch, and they expressed with
much beauty and charm the fantasies and vanities
of their day. The butterflies have flown and the
flowers have withered. The silks and satins have
faded, but we can still hear their faint rustle
through the marble halls, as we turn the leaves of
this record of folly and sunshine, which the facile
fingers of Debucourt, Fragonard, Janinet, Le Bion,
Descourtes, Lavreince and many others have
made it possible for us to enjoy.
There is a great deal of virile and effective colour
in these reproductions, and in some instances they
fall slightly short of some desired qualities. The
composition and design in them have been most
valuable to modern students. Some of them, of
course, look stilted and metallic to those who live
in a period when art is being worshipped from a
different standpoint, when she is beginning to be
loved more for her own sake, and is not merely a
humble menial to be brought before milady and
received with condescension or scorn, according to
the degree to which milady’s vanity is flattered or
neglected.
The book is valuable as an art contribution.
It makes available and accessible in compact
form a good representation of the work of the best
men of the eighteenth century in this particular
field, and is well worth the attention of the stu-
dent of the French art of the period.
Gustave Courbet. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin-
cott Company.) $1.00.
A monograph on Courbet makes the third num-
ber of the French Artists of Our Day series, the
preceding ones, which have been reviewed already

in our columns, being Manet and Puvis de Cha-
vannes.
A biographical and critical study by Leonce
Benedite along with notes by J. Laran and Ph.
Gaston-Dreyfus and 48 plates render the little
work extremely attractive, especially when we
consider the immense position in French art that
this peasant of Ornans filled until ousted by
Manet. What Repin has been in Russia, Courbet
has been in France.
A Short History of Art. By Julia B. De
Forest. Edited, revised and largely rewritten
by Charles H. Caffin. With 289 illustrations.
(New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.) $3.00.
There is no doubt that this book was useful in its
day and that some usefulness is added in this
revision. But whether an entirely new book
would not have been better is another question.
The best part of Mr. Caffin’s work evidently lies in
the generalizations in which certain movements of
art are characterized, in which one gets some
insight into the “objects and means of graphic
art,” which are more consistently if a bit heavily
expounded in such good guides as the recent books
of Brandt and Waetzold. Similarly, the more
prominent individual artists are characterized
with happy and crisp summariness. But others
are mentioned in the briefest of unilluminat-
ing biographical facts, grouped somewhat per-
functorily.
It is fairly apparent that where the editor was
interested he gives no cause for complaint. The
revision has left various matters unrevised—for
instance, the statement about Mantegna’s engrav-
ings (p. 276), the want of clearness concerning
Blake (pp. 477-8), the error regarding Michel-
angelo’s Penseroso (p. 254) and so on. The
printer’s devil has been fairly well held in check in
proofreading.
Strangely enough, most errors in names occur
in the American section; there is a choice and
inexcusable lot of such on page 651. The index,
not without a tinge of amateurishness, shows good
intentions, which one would like to have seen
consistently carried out. The numerous illus-
trations, with their short descriptive notes, are
useful.
So many books have been placed upon the
editor’s table during the last few weeks that it
has been impossible to review them all by Christ-
mas, but those not yet noticed will receive atten-
tion during the winter season.


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