DOI Heft:
Nr. 333 (February 1925)
DOI Artikel:A shelf of new art books
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0160
mceRnAcionAL
st»a©
A SHELF of NEW ART BOOKS
OLD FRENCH ENGRAVINGS. By Ralph
Nevill. Halton and Truscott Smith, Ltd., London,
Milton, Balcb & Co., New York. Price, $20.
j~ ater and more puritanical ages have pointed the finger
/ of shame at the French eighteenth century. But it is
possible that the frivolous persons of that time took
quite as much pleasure in their folly as the puritans did in
calling attention to it. But however that may be, the
graphic record which the painters and engravers have left
shows a people who went about in a delightful way, paying
great attention to their surroundings, as delicate and
charming in their loves as in their dress. Prettiness, far
removed from insipidity, is characteristic of all their art.
The art was one of the aristocracy. Even in the pictures
of peasant life it is the farmer seen through the eyes of a
noblesse which amused itself with bucolic pastimes who is
depicted. The reality which is concerned with unpleasant-
ness they did not consider a worthy subject for art. It is
probable that there was quite as much mud in the streets
than as at any later time but it did not get splashed on
canvas. Why should we, with our sturdy virtues and
unamiable vices, quarrel with them?
Mr. Nevill has wisely refrained from any special pleading
or apology for the subjects of les estampes galanles beyond
a casual reference to one or two peculiarly flagrant stu-
pidities of the censors. He does describe the prints charm-
ingly, records their various states and their relative rarity
and gives much information of particular value to col-
lectors. For the general reader his notes on the making of
the engravings, on the painters and engravers, will prob-
ably be of greater interest. Of the painters who made
sketches for the engravings Watteau, Chardin, Fragonard
and Boucher are the most familiar although Badouin and
Lavreince were both prolific and popular. The engravers
were perfect craftsmen and quite frequently the artist's
design was not only completed but improved by them.
Mr. Nevill has mentioned all of them whose works were of
importance and devoted a special section of his book to
the engravings of Moreau Ie jeune, the painter-engraver
whose work has often been called the finest of his age.
LANDSCAPE PAINTING: From Giotto to
the Present Day. By C. Lewis Hind. Volume
II: From Constable to the Present Day. Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York. Price, S8.50.
rhe second half of Mr. Hind's "labor of love and
lamentations" is now out of his patient and willing
hands and the whole of his elaborate treatise on
landscape painting is the public's to peruse and profit by.
However much one may take exception to this appreciative
critic's conclusions there is always the pleasure of sharing
his enthusiasms and discoveries, since he writes as one who
finds it "easier and more natural to enjoy than to disagree,
to receive than to reject."
Having investigated the art of landscape painting from
Giotto to Turner in his first volume, Mr. Hind has had,
in his second, the more difficult task of charting the route
of this branch of painting among the confluences and tidal
waters of the last hundred and fifty years. He begins with
an analysis of how Constable "performed the old legerde-
main of a return to nature" and how the art of France
was roused from its classic and stately slumbers by his
now famous "Hay-Wain." Then, step by step, through
the various schools and countries, he traces the lines of
branching thought in the landscape art, showing how the
restless shuttle—insofar as it is possible to unravel the
complex weaving—gradually developed the general pat-
tern for each period.
The tale, like some absorbing romance, runs from Con-
stable to Delacrois and the Barbizon group, to the Hudson
River men in America, through Jongkind and Boudin to
the Impressionists, noting the Pi e-Raphaelites, Whistler,
Homer, certain Dutchmen, tackling Post-Impressionism,
and then winding up with the twentieth century painters
on both sides the Atlantic. The volume is copiously illus-
trated, splendidly indexed, and from a chronological point
of view an invaluable reference book.
GOLD AND SILVER JEWELRY AND RE-
LATED OBJECTS. By Caroline Ransom Wil-
liams. The New York Historical Society, lyo
Central Park West, New York. Price, $10.
rHis catalogue of Egyptian jewelry belonging to the
New York Historical Society is the first part of an
extensive work which eventually will include its
entire Egyptian collection, the greater part of which was
brought by Dr. Henry Abbott to this country in 1852 and
presented to the Society about eight years later. A cata-
logue was made by Joseph Bonomi in 1843 of the collection
as it then existed in Dr. Abbott's famous house in Cairo.
This catalogue has been added to and reprinted at various
times up to 1915. However, modern scholarship and
research have accumulated a vast amount of information
since the early days of the collection when the well-known
"Menes Necklace and Earrings" were considered by the
Dr. Abbott himself to be his most priceless possession, a
group which Mrs. Williams lists as only interesting forgery.
The equally celebrated "Pharaoh's ring," thought to have
been that of Khufu, builder of the pyramid of Giza, has
since been determined to be the ring of Neferibre, priest
of Isis. But even in its more modest estate it is still one
of the envied possessions of the Society. It is of unusual
weight and excellently preserved.
The collection contains many rare and unusual speci-
mens, such as its oldest piece, dating from the second half
of the twelfth dynasty in the nineteenth century, B. C.
It is a cylindrical outer case of gold and one of the earliest
examples of granulated work in existence. Furthermore it
represents the best period of the Egyptian jeweler's craft,
the Middle Kingdom. The next in age, and one of the
loveliest, is a circlet for the head, from the New Kingdom
eighteenth to twentieth dynasties) and is the first of this
period to be published. Amulets, seal rings, scarabs and
statuettes are some of the other forms with which these
ancient craftsmen concerned themselves. The importance
of these objects in reference to Egyptian life is much
greater than that of modern jewelry as an expression of
our civilization, for at that time men wore jewelry to the
same extent as women and there was also the jewelry that
was made for the dead, for the gods, and as royal gifts.
Mrs. Williams, whose home is in Toledo, came to New
York to conduct a special examination of the jewelry she
catalogues, and her remarks on processes, alloys and tools
four twenty
february I925
st»a©
A SHELF of NEW ART BOOKS
OLD FRENCH ENGRAVINGS. By Ralph
Nevill. Halton and Truscott Smith, Ltd., London,
Milton, Balcb & Co., New York. Price, $20.
j~ ater and more puritanical ages have pointed the finger
/ of shame at the French eighteenth century. But it is
possible that the frivolous persons of that time took
quite as much pleasure in their folly as the puritans did in
calling attention to it. But however that may be, the
graphic record which the painters and engravers have left
shows a people who went about in a delightful way, paying
great attention to their surroundings, as delicate and
charming in their loves as in their dress. Prettiness, far
removed from insipidity, is characteristic of all their art.
The art was one of the aristocracy. Even in the pictures
of peasant life it is the farmer seen through the eyes of a
noblesse which amused itself with bucolic pastimes who is
depicted. The reality which is concerned with unpleasant-
ness they did not consider a worthy subject for art. It is
probable that there was quite as much mud in the streets
than as at any later time but it did not get splashed on
canvas. Why should we, with our sturdy virtues and
unamiable vices, quarrel with them?
Mr. Nevill has wisely refrained from any special pleading
or apology for the subjects of les estampes galanles beyond
a casual reference to one or two peculiarly flagrant stu-
pidities of the censors. He does describe the prints charm-
ingly, records their various states and their relative rarity
and gives much information of particular value to col-
lectors. For the general reader his notes on the making of
the engravings, on the painters and engravers, will prob-
ably be of greater interest. Of the painters who made
sketches for the engravings Watteau, Chardin, Fragonard
and Boucher are the most familiar although Badouin and
Lavreince were both prolific and popular. The engravers
were perfect craftsmen and quite frequently the artist's
design was not only completed but improved by them.
Mr. Nevill has mentioned all of them whose works were of
importance and devoted a special section of his book to
the engravings of Moreau Ie jeune, the painter-engraver
whose work has often been called the finest of his age.
LANDSCAPE PAINTING: From Giotto to
the Present Day. By C. Lewis Hind. Volume
II: From Constable to the Present Day. Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York. Price, S8.50.
rhe second half of Mr. Hind's "labor of love and
lamentations" is now out of his patient and willing
hands and the whole of his elaborate treatise on
landscape painting is the public's to peruse and profit by.
However much one may take exception to this appreciative
critic's conclusions there is always the pleasure of sharing
his enthusiasms and discoveries, since he writes as one who
finds it "easier and more natural to enjoy than to disagree,
to receive than to reject."
Having investigated the art of landscape painting from
Giotto to Turner in his first volume, Mr. Hind has had,
in his second, the more difficult task of charting the route
of this branch of painting among the confluences and tidal
waters of the last hundred and fifty years. He begins with
an analysis of how Constable "performed the old legerde-
main of a return to nature" and how the art of France
was roused from its classic and stately slumbers by his
now famous "Hay-Wain." Then, step by step, through
the various schools and countries, he traces the lines of
branching thought in the landscape art, showing how the
restless shuttle—insofar as it is possible to unravel the
complex weaving—gradually developed the general pat-
tern for each period.
The tale, like some absorbing romance, runs from Con-
stable to Delacrois and the Barbizon group, to the Hudson
River men in America, through Jongkind and Boudin to
the Impressionists, noting the Pi e-Raphaelites, Whistler,
Homer, certain Dutchmen, tackling Post-Impressionism,
and then winding up with the twentieth century painters
on both sides the Atlantic. The volume is copiously illus-
trated, splendidly indexed, and from a chronological point
of view an invaluable reference book.
GOLD AND SILVER JEWELRY AND RE-
LATED OBJECTS. By Caroline Ransom Wil-
liams. The New York Historical Society, lyo
Central Park West, New York. Price, $10.
rHis catalogue of Egyptian jewelry belonging to the
New York Historical Society is the first part of an
extensive work which eventually will include its
entire Egyptian collection, the greater part of which was
brought by Dr. Henry Abbott to this country in 1852 and
presented to the Society about eight years later. A cata-
logue was made by Joseph Bonomi in 1843 of the collection
as it then existed in Dr. Abbott's famous house in Cairo.
This catalogue has been added to and reprinted at various
times up to 1915. However, modern scholarship and
research have accumulated a vast amount of information
since the early days of the collection when the well-known
"Menes Necklace and Earrings" were considered by the
Dr. Abbott himself to be his most priceless possession, a
group which Mrs. Williams lists as only interesting forgery.
The equally celebrated "Pharaoh's ring," thought to have
been that of Khufu, builder of the pyramid of Giza, has
since been determined to be the ring of Neferibre, priest
of Isis. But even in its more modest estate it is still one
of the envied possessions of the Society. It is of unusual
weight and excellently preserved.
The collection contains many rare and unusual speci-
mens, such as its oldest piece, dating from the second half
of the twelfth dynasty in the nineteenth century, B. C.
It is a cylindrical outer case of gold and one of the earliest
examples of granulated work in existence. Furthermore it
represents the best period of the Egyptian jeweler's craft,
the Middle Kingdom. The next in age, and one of the
loveliest, is a circlet for the head, from the New Kingdom
eighteenth to twentieth dynasties) and is the first of this
period to be published. Amulets, seal rings, scarabs and
statuettes are some of the other forms with which these
ancient craftsmen concerned themselves. The importance
of these objects in reference to Egyptian life is much
greater than that of modern jewelry as an expression of
our civilization, for at that time men wore jewelry to the
same extent as women and there was also the jewelry that
was made for the dead, for the gods, and as royal gifts.
Mrs. Williams, whose home is in Toledo, came to New
York to conduct a special examination of the jewelry she
catalogues, and her remarks on processes, alloys and tools
four twenty
february I925