Studio: international art (17.1899)

Reviews of Recent Publications

reproduced. All art lovers will regret the prema-
ture close of a career that was so full of promise for
the future. J. W. S.

ANTWERP.—In the “ Kunstverbond ”
there were recently exhibited some
works by Claus, Luyten, Verstraete,
painters; Dupon, a sculptor; and
de Braey, an architect. Each of the
three painters shows very strong individuality.
Claus, in landscapes of most exquisite refinement,
gives a poetic rendering of the magic of light;
Luyten, on boldly painted canvases, depicts the
richness of our Flemish fields; while Verstraete
reveals the melancholy of his own heart, even
more perhaps than that of the impression he has
received. Dupon sent in some very successful
little statues; while de Braey exhibited a series of
plans for the erection of new and the restoration of
old houses, in some of which he has been very
successful.

In Venusstraat “Arti et Labori” opened its
yearly exhibition. Thorough good work was
shown here by H. de Smeth and Looymans, two
very powerful colourists. Very promising also

MEDAL BY J. H. BAARS

MEDAL BY J. H. BAARS

were the works contributed by van Haack, Nykerk
and Halle, and by the sculptors Strymans and
Pierre. P. de M.

REVIEWS OF RECENT
PUBLICATIONS.

A Second Book of Fifty Drawings by Aubrey
Beardsley. (London : Leonard Smithers & Co.)
—One of the most remarkable features in this col-
lection is the series of fourteen drawings made by
Beardsley in 1889-90, which are here reproduced
for the first time. They are undoubtedly im-
mature, and do not in any way enhance the artist’s
reputation. But it is interesting to see in them
the beginnings of his future work. The rapid
development in the formation of his style gave to
the artist’s work in two or three years’ time a dis-
tinction which his earlier drawings do not possess;
but on a careful examination of these boyish pro-
ductions it is evident that his later and better draw-
ings owed much to his initial efforts, and were not,
as some have thought, an entire breaking away
from them. Of the more recent compositions
which appear for the first time in this collection,
one of the most excellent is the Frontispiece for
Venus and Tannhaiiser on page 179. This is in
many respects an admirable production, and goes
far to show the remarkable faculty for design which
Beardsley possessed.

Ruskin, Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelitism. Papers
1854 to 1862. Arranged and Edited by William
Michael Rossetti. (London: George Allen.)

281