Studio: international art (10.1897)

Reviews of Recent Publications

Zilcken. The text translated from the Dutch by
Clara Bell. (London : Cassell & Co.)—It is
perhaps premature to write a life of Mesdag. In
English art-biography we hear of a painter who
took no share in public life, who kept aloof from
society and knew no changes except a few changes
of residence in his native country, and now and
again a foreign tour ; an artist who, howbeit strictly
economical, took a handsome house in a handsome
street of his country's capital, and, having at an
early period of his career, by industry and thrift,
attained complete pecuniary independence, worked
in freedom from any money-pressure, yet with
astounding rapidity. It is needless to say here
that the man who has been thus described was
Turner. The time came for writing Turner's life,
and it has been written. The case is somewhat
different with Mesdag. The time has hardly yet
come for writing his life, howbeit it has been
written. The time has, perhaps, hardly yet come
for drawing parallels, yet what is written above has
been the result of drawing a parallel. To the
writer of this review there appear to be many meet-

DRAWIXG BY E. H. NEW FROM I:IN THE GARDEN OF
PEACE" (JOHN LANE)

I40

ing points in the lives and characters of the great
departed English painter and the great living
Dutch painter. When a quite unbiassed life of
Mesdag is written, this matter will perhaps be set
in fuller light. Then, too, perhaps, will be set
forth the fact that,, while regarded as men, that is
to say, that, while viewed from the circumstances
of their lives, and from certain marks of character,
Mesdag and Turner must be allowed to offer some
striking similarities, the case alters greatly when
they are considered as painters. It is then seen
that, excepting their phenomenal industry, they have
very little in common. This is the more remark-
able because both are renowned painters of the sea;
seen by Turner first from Margate sands and by
Mesdag perhaps first—and certainly last—from
Scheveningen sands. The explanation of the
difference between the sea-paintings of Turner and
those of Mesdag seems to lie in the circumstance
that the sea painted by Turner is that which was
described in Genesis, the deep with the spirit of God
moving upon the face of the waters, while the sea
painted by Mesdag is that which was described by
Walt Whitman in his poem "After the Sea-Ship."
That poem, as readers of Walt Whitman will know,
is a quite masterly performance. There is only one
objection that it would be possible to raise against
it, that it is more like beautiful prose than beautiful
poetry. Something similar is true of Mesdag's
pictures, there being many who will not like them
less on this account. Mr. Zilcken's exquisite black-
and-white reproductions of them, together with his
helpful running commentary, should make the
North Sea painter well-known and well-loved on
both sides of the Atlantic.

/// the Garden of Peace. By Helen Milman.
Illustrated by Edmund H. New. (London and New
York: John Lane.)—Lovers of flowers and birds
and old gardens will welcome this charmingly-
written little book. Mr. New has drawn some ap-
propriate and pleasant illustrations with which to
decorate its pages. But they are almost a super-
fluous adornment, for the author's chapters are in
themselves vivid and beautiful word-pictures.

Der Bunte Vogel von 1897. By Otto Julius
Bierbaun. (London : H. Grevel & Co.)—This
quarto really demands the adjective " quaint; " one
dislikes to employ even rightly a word so ill-used,
but if the designs by F. Vallatton scattered through
its pages are not "quaint," it only remains to call
them "primitive." To be quite honest, one is sorry
that so very capable a designer did not try to be
more himself; but there is a certain naivete in the
little grotesques that is not without charm. The