DOI issue:
Nr. 226 (December 1915)
DOI article:Reviews and notices
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43460#0202
Reviews and Notices
REVIEWS AND NOTICES.
The Surrey Hills. By F. E. Green. With
illustrations by Elliott Seabrooke. (London;
Chatto and Windus.) 75. 6d. net.—Mr. Green
has written a very entertaining narrative of his
rambles among the hills which make Surrey one of
the most charming shires of England. Number-
less are the celebrities who have lived there, and,
in fact, there is hardly a village in the author’s
itinerary with which some name of importance
is not associated. Those of literary men of note
figure most prominently in Mr. Green’s pages, and
amongst these he gives an entire chapter to George
Meredith and his abode on Boxhill. One of Mr.
Seabrooke’s illustrations shows a view of the broad
expanse of country seen from Meredith’s window at
Flint Cottage—a view which makes one appreciate
his reason for building it and his attachment to the
spot for over forty years, for, as he wrote to a
friend, “ I must have for my daily meal a good
plateful of sky; and the sun must drop into it or I
am not satisfied. I feed on him and the field
he traverses.” But literary men have not been
allowed to monopolise the charms of Surrey, and
of late years an increasing number of well-to-do
merchants, lawyers, and others who have prospered
have found an abiding place on the tops or slopes
of its hills, many of them developing a taste for
truly rural pursuits. The author mentions a lawyer
noted for his knowledge of philosophy as well
as law, whose penchant was pedigree pigs, and
who spent the best part of his Sundays gazing
at them, the smell of his piggery being more
alluring to him than the incense of his church.
Mr. Seabrooke has supplied twenty-eight illus-
trations, and as an artist with an eye for broad
vistas and a poetic temperament he was especially
fitted to do justice, as he has done, to the land-
scape beauties of the Surrey hills. One short-
coming of the book is the absence of an index.
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors,
and Architects. By Giorgio Vasari. Newly
translated by Gaston Du C. de Vere. (London :
Medici Society). Vols. VII, VIII, IX. 255'. net.
each.—In reviewing the earlier volumes of this
new translation of Vasari’s Lives, we have testified
to the conscientious care and thought bestowed on
its preparation and to the admirable way in which
the edition has been presented both as regards
typography and the illustrations in colour and
monochrome. The three further volumes before
us fully maintain the high standard of excellence
exhibited in the antecedent volumes, and in antici-
pation of the promised early publication of the
146
tenth and final volume we can congratulate the
Medici Society upon the completion of an under-
taking which will earn the appreciation of all
students of the history of Italian art. We under-
stand it is their intention to supplement the ten
volumes of the translation with a supplementary
volume devoted to a critical commentary on
Vasari’s statements, embodying the results of the
vast amount of research which has been bestowed
on the work of the artists whose deeds and
achievements he has recorded.
The Book of Old English Songs and Ballads.
Illustrated in colour by Eleanor Fortescue
Brickdale. (London : Hodder and Stoughton.)
Paper 55-. net; Cloth, 6s. net.—We have referred
elsewhere to the original drawings, twenty-four of
which are here reproduced in colour, in connection
with the exhibition at the Leicester Galleries. Very
charming is the picture accompanying Ben Jonson’s
“ A Hue and cry after Cupid,” and the illustration
O Love! has she done this to thee ? to Lyly’s de-
lightful “ Cupid and my Campaspe,” and yet
another, sumptuous in design and colour “ Our
Lady sings Magnificat.” The poetical quality of
Miss Brickdale’s work in this volume is for the
most part in her delicate and very pleasing crafts-
manship rather than in the pictorial ideas, which
might, some of them, seem a little prosaic as
illustrations to such charming lines as these here
reprinted, did not the beauty of technical accom-
plishment fill our eyes.
The Artistic Anatomy of Trees. By Rex Vicat
Cole. (London : Seeley, Service and Co.) yr. 6d.
net.—This recent addition to the “New Art Library”
will be found very helpful to the student of land-
scape painting. The name of the author is itself
a guarantee that the subject is adequately treated ;
he has devoted many years to the study of trees in
all their varieties and aspects, and already many an
artist and designer has profited by the extensive
series of drawings which appeared in Mr. Vicat
Cole’s comprehensive work on “British Trees”
issued about seven or eight years ago and of which
some selected examples were reproduced in our
pages at the time. In this new manual, intended
to meet the needs of beginners as well as more
advanced students, the subject is handled in a
systematic and lucid way which the novice with
but an elementary knowledge of drawing and no
knowledge of the structure of trees can follow with
ease; while among those who pride themselves on
considerable proficiency in drawing or painting
trees there are few who will fail to derive some
advantage from its contents. The author has
REVIEWS AND NOTICES.
The Surrey Hills. By F. E. Green. With
illustrations by Elliott Seabrooke. (London;
Chatto and Windus.) 75. 6d. net.—Mr. Green
has written a very entertaining narrative of his
rambles among the hills which make Surrey one of
the most charming shires of England. Number-
less are the celebrities who have lived there, and,
in fact, there is hardly a village in the author’s
itinerary with which some name of importance
is not associated. Those of literary men of note
figure most prominently in Mr. Green’s pages, and
amongst these he gives an entire chapter to George
Meredith and his abode on Boxhill. One of Mr.
Seabrooke’s illustrations shows a view of the broad
expanse of country seen from Meredith’s window at
Flint Cottage—a view which makes one appreciate
his reason for building it and his attachment to the
spot for over forty years, for, as he wrote to a
friend, “ I must have for my daily meal a good
plateful of sky; and the sun must drop into it or I
am not satisfied. I feed on him and the field
he traverses.” But literary men have not been
allowed to monopolise the charms of Surrey, and
of late years an increasing number of well-to-do
merchants, lawyers, and others who have prospered
have found an abiding place on the tops or slopes
of its hills, many of them developing a taste for
truly rural pursuits. The author mentions a lawyer
noted for his knowledge of philosophy as well
as law, whose penchant was pedigree pigs, and
who spent the best part of his Sundays gazing
at them, the smell of his piggery being more
alluring to him than the incense of his church.
Mr. Seabrooke has supplied twenty-eight illus-
trations, and as an artist with an eye for broad
vistas and a poetic temperament he was especially
fitted to do justice, as he has done, to the land-
scape beauties of the Surrey hills. One short-
coming of the book is the absence of an index.
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors,
and Architects. By Giorgio Vasari. Newly
translated by Gaston Du C. de Vere. (London :
Medici Society). Vols. VII, VIII, IX. 255'. net.
each.—In reviewing the earlier volumes of this
new translation of Vasari’s Lives, we have testified
to the conscientious care and thought bestowed on
its preparation and to the admirable way in which
the edition has been presented both as regards
typography and the illustrations in colour and
monochrome. The three further volumes before
us fully maintain the high standard of excellence
exhibited in the antecedent volumes, and in antici-
pation of the promised early publication of the
146
tenth and final volume we can congratulate the
Medici Society upon the completion of an under-
taking which will earn the appreciation of all
students of the history of Italian art. We under-
stand it is their intention to supplement the ten
volumes of the translation with a supplementary
volume devoted to a critical commentary on
Vasari’s statements, embodying the results of the
vast amount of research which has been bestowed
on the work of the artists whose deeds and
achievements he has recorded.
The Book of Old English Songs and Ballads.
Illustrated in colour by Eleanor Fortescue
Brickdale. (London : Hodder and Stoughton.)
Paper 55-. net; Cloth, 6s. net.—We have referred
elsewhere to the original drawings, twenty-four of
which are here reproduced in colour, in connection
with the exhibition at the Leicester Galleries. Very
charming is the picture accompanying Ben Jonson’s
“ A Hue and cry after Cupid,” and the illustration
O Love! has she done this to thee ? to Lyly’s de-
lightful “ Cupid and my Campaspe,” and yet
another, sumptuous in design and colour “ Our
Lady sings Magnificat.” The poetical quality of
Miss Brickdale’s work in this volume is for the
most part in her delicate and very pleasing crafts-
manship rather than in the pictorial ideas, which
might, some of them, seem a little prosaic as
illustrations to such charming lines as these here
reprinted, did not the beauty of technical accom-
plishment fill our eyes.
The Artistic Anatomy of Trees. By Rex Vicat
Cole. (London : Seeley, Service and Co.) yr. 6d.
net.—This recent addition to the “New Art Library”
will be found very helpful to the student of land-
scape painting. The name of the author is itself
a guarantee that the subject is adequately treated ;
he has devoted many years to the study of trees in
all their varieties and aspects, and already many an
artist and designer has profited by the extensive
series of drawings which appeared in Mr. Vicat
Cole’s comprehensive work on “British Trees”
issued about seven or eight years ago and of which
some selected examples were reproduced in our
pages at the time. In this new manual, intended
to meet the needs of beginners as well as more
advanced students, the subject is handled in a
systematic and lucid way which the novice with
but an elementary knowledge of drawing and no
knowledge of the structure of trees can follow with
ease; while among those who pride themselves on
considerable proficiency in drawing or painting
trees there are few who will fail to derive some
advantage from its contents. The author has