Studio: international art (14.1898)

Reviews of Recent Publications

Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, i8pp-i8’/o.
By G. Birkbeck Hill, D.C.L., LL.D. (London :
Fisher Unwin.) Price 12s.—The future biographers
of Rossetti will not be lacking in material for
their compilations. The “ Letters ” which have
previously appeared under the editorship of W. M.
Rossetti are now supplemented by the pre-
sent series written in the course of sixteen years
to his friend William Allingham. A selection
from these has already appeared in the pages of
The Atlantic Monthly ; but in their present form
many passages previously omitted are now in-
cluded, and the editor’s notes have been so ampli-
fied that the four serial articles, we are told, are
increased to thrice their original size. Want of
space prevents us from giving any quotations from
Dr. Hill’s interesting work; it is one, however, in
which all admirers of Rossetti cannot fail to find
much that will attract them. Some illustrations
after D. G. Rossetti, Miss Siddal, Arthur Hughes,
and Mrs. Allingham, are included, together with
an excellent photogravure after the portrait of the
artist-poet by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A.

The English Flower Garden. By W. Robin-
son. Sixth edition. (London : John Murray.)
Price 15^.—Mr. Robinson is an acknowledged
advocate of landscape gardening, and in the earlier
chapters of this well-known work he brings many
able arguments and illustrations of delightful
gardens to support his views. It is only when he
attempts to deal with “formal” and “ terraced ”
gardens that his want of sympathy appears unduly
to warp his judgment. While we regret this inability
to appreciate a highly interesting phase of one of
the most delightful of arts, we cordially sympathise
with the author’s love of Nature for its own sake,
and we wish no better guide than this to help us
in the choice and management of the beautiful
plants and flowers we would have about us.

Hamburgischer Kunstler Club, 189J. (Ham-
burg : Commissionsverlag D. Commeterschen

Kunsthandlung).—The series of eight beautifully
printed lithographs contained in a cover bearing
the above title is another evidence of the degree
of excellence to which this particular expression of
art has attained upon the continent of Europe.
Von Ehren, Eitner, Herbst, lilies, Kayser, Sibelist,
Schaper, and Wohlers are each responsible for
one drawing, and all their productions are ex-
cellent.

Architecture Among the Poets. By H. H. Stat-
ham. (London: B. T. Batsford.) Price 35. 6d.
net.—A fascinating essay full of pleasant sugges-
tion and thoughtful criticism. Between Homer
292

and Browning lies a long road bordered by the
gardens of many poets; . yet the author, in his
journey from end to end, has rarely failed to find
the flowers he sought, and to speak of them with
the kindly appreciation they merit. The little
volume is very charmingly bound.

Greek a?id Pompeian Ornament. By James C.
Watt. (London : B. T. Batsford.) Price 36.L—
A series of sixty plates, carefully drawn to scale
from the actual examples at Athens, Palermo, and
Naples. On the whole, the drawings are excel-
lent, and cannot fail to be of use to architectural
students and art masters.

The Nature Poems of George Meredith. With
illustrations by William Hyde. (Westminster:
A. Constable & Co.)—In the number of The
Studio for June 1894 appeared a short apprecia-
tive note in relation to some drawings by William
Hyde, together with reproductions of his work.
That this artist possessed exceptional abilities
was then evident; and it is with particular plea-
sure that we find in the book now under review
no fewer than twenty compositions from his brush
each one of which testifies to the high poetic quality
of his work, and fully justifies all we then had to
say concerning his abilities. These delightful little
drawings, excellently reproduced by photogravure,
are a worthy accompaniment to Mr. Meredith’s
beautiful Nature Poems.

Choix de Modeles de la Manufacture Nationale
de Sevres. Album of 136 plates. (Paris: Calavas.)
—This is a precious collection of “ documents,”
giving a complete description of the mysteries of
that art of making porcelain—the Biscuits de Sevres
—which flourished in the eighteenth century.
What a wealth of gracefulness and elegance in these
allegorical groups, these vases and statuettes,
modelled or designed by artists such as Caffieri,
Houdon, Pajon, Clodion, Boizot, Duplessis, Le-
riche and Lagrence ! They contain all the art of
the eighteenth century, that delicate, refined and
“ intimate ” art in which the French spirit became
so completely incarnated, that art which no other
art has equalled, or will ever equal, in point of
grace. Even the least interesting, the most ordi-
nary, of these designs have this incontestable merit,
that they were conceived in complete accord with
the nature of the material in which they were
fashioned. Most of the examples to be found in
the Ceramic Museum at Sevres are reproduced in
this album, and it is a charming and an instruc-
tive pastime to examine a series of plates which
revives the beauties of this exquisitely delicate
art.