International studio (82.1925)

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A SHELF of NEW ART BOOKS

DIE HANDZEICHNINGEN REMBRANDTS.
PART I. By Wilhelm R. Valentiner. E.
Weyhe, New York. Price, $8.00.

rHis volume represents the first fruits of work that Dr.
Valentiner has been engaged in for many years, the
preparation of a catalogue raisonne of the drawings of
Rembrandt to be issued in three parts. Every known
drawing is to be reproduced in the work and the measure
of their great number may be taken through the fact that
464 are in the first part alone. The introductory text is in
German but as is the excellent custom of foreign art works
of this character titles to the drawings are furnished in
French and English as well as the original German. The
captions also include the dates, where the original drawing
is and its catalogue number. AH of the drawings in this
first part of Dr. Valentiner's catalogue raisonne are of
Scriptural subjects. They are arranged in chronological
order as well as by subjects such as "Adam and Eve,"
"Cain and Abel," "Abraham and Lot," as well as being
grouped under the books of the Old Testament. The re-
productions are admirably done and the mere statement of
the contents of the work tells the whole story of its great
importance to the student of Rembrandt.

THE TRAGIC LIFE OF VINCENT VAN
GOGH. By Louis Pierard. Translated by
Herbert Garland. Houghton-Mifflin Co., Bos-
ton. Price, $3.50.

Wo life of Van Gogh ever has been written in
English, and this is the first biography to appear
in translation, with the exception of Meier-
Graefe's exceedingly expensive volumes. Van Gogh's
father and grandfather were clergymen—kindly, friendly
men. But Vincent was a self-centered, moody boy who
avoided contact with people. His life was brief and tragic.
When still in his teens he entered the London house of a
firm of art dealers, and gradually became seriously inter-
ested in sketching and painting. But an unhappy romance
intervened, and he sank again into his former moody state
of mind. Though transferred to the Paris house, he re-
fused to be interested in anything but religion and self-
sacrifice. Finally, he gave up his work as picture salesman,
and a long period of idleness followed, in which he was eith-
er consumed with religious frenzy or overcome with
deep melancholy. In an effort to save his reason, his fam-
ily found a place for him as a book-seller's assistant, then
as a schoolmaster, and even entered him as a student in a
theological seminary—but he failed in everything. Finally
he went, voluntarily, as a missionary to the miners of Le
Borinage where, after two years spent in cruel destitution,
interest in his painting and sketching was reawakened.
During the remaining ten years of his life he wandered here
and there in Holland and France, suffering great priva-
tions, but constantly studying and drawing. His talent
developed rapidly. He painted with amazing swiftness,
finishing a landscape in a day or less, and a portrait in a
few hours. But his work was often expressive of confusion,
revealing his state of mind. He made few friends, and lost
those few toward the last; even Gauguin became fearful of
his strange manner. Finally his family placed him in a
hospital under the care of a specialist in mental disorders.
He was soon released, but his irritability and his delusions

of persecution became more and more intense—leading to
suicide in 1890, at the age of thirty-seven. He left a letter
containing the line: "My work—I risked my life for it, and
my reason has almost foundered."

The book contains several reproductions in half-tone of
the artist's paintings and drawings; also a bibliography of
works relating to him. Altogether, it is well worth con-
sideration by any person interested in this extraordinary
man and artist.

THE OLD MISSION CHURCHES AND HIS-
TORIC HOUSES OF CALIFORNIA: Their
History, Architecture, Art and Lore. By
Rexford Newcomb. J. B. Lippincott Co., Phila-
delphia.

s a pictorial record alone, of old Spanish Missions
in California, this book is of great value to the art
reader, for more than two hundred photographs are
reproduced—exteriors, interiors, details; churches before
and after restoration; also many sketches, plans, maps, and
old paintings, including an insert in color of the Mission
San Gabriel Arcangel. But its chief value is, unques-
tionably, that it helps to fill a gap in the history of Ameri-
can architecture, for, although much has been written of
Colonial architecture, and modern developments in this
country, the Spanish architecture of our Southwest has
been practically untouched. The author, who is Professor
of the History of Architecture at the University of Illinois,
spent six years in actual field investigation, and thirteen
years in continuous research in preparation for this work
on the mission churches. The book contains nearly four
hundred pages, and is divided into three parts. Part One
is brief, including a description of California, the story of
the Padres, the rise and decline of the mission system, and
an account of life at the missions and in the provinces.
Part Three is brief also, describing the old houses of
Southern California, and touching upon modern Hispanic
architecture. Part Two, however, covers two hundred and
thirty-three pages, and gives a condensed but most com-
plete history of the development of mission architecture;
their materials and construction. Twenty-one of the old
Spanish missions are fully described. Through all the
chapters runs the story of the Padres—those fine, cour-
ageous men who endured appalling hardships that their
missions might be built, and schools and industries be
established, thereby contributing much of permanent value
to the development of California.

EDWIN WILLARD DEMING—HIS WORK.
Compiled by Therese 0. Deming, with a Fore-
word by Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn. Pri-
vately Priixted by the Riverside Press.

record and appreciation of Deming as painter and
man. The monograph also contains a sketch of his
life which reveals the reason for his understanding of
the American Indian. Though born in i860, he was
really one of this country's pioneers, for his youth was
spent in the wildernesses of Western Illinois; and the chil-
dren of the Winnebago tribe were his playmates and
friends. The booklet also contains a list of Mr. Deming's
best known paintings, some of which are reproduced in half
tone; and letters of appreciation from artists and his-
torians, including Theodore Roosevelt.

two thirty

december i 92 5