Studio: international art (21.1901)

Reviews

Friedrich Schaper, of Hamburg, made a welcome
appearance with a modest but effective work—a
meadow scene, with a peasant girl pouring milk
into a red lacquered vessel. This touch of strong
colour in the foreground harmonised admirably
with the green around, giving it exactly the right
depth.

The exhibits from Munich were not very
numerous, for the simple reason that the exhibition
there absorbed almost all the best work. Very
remarkable was Corinth's Salome—a work the fine
colouring of which must be admitted, however
much one may object to its coarse style. A
broadly and tastefully painted portrait of a
woman was exhibited by Slcvogt; von Uhde
sent many of his early productions, the best
perhaps being a scene in an old inn-garden;
Ziigel had some of his grand animal paintings;
and finally we have Buttersack's beautiful land-
scape studies. So widely represented were the
other countries that really there was quite a
foreign air about the exhibition. Reference to
the foreign exhibits must, however, be reserved
for next month. G. G.

REVIEWS.

Roman Art. By Franz Wickhoff. Translated
and Edited by Mrs. S. Arthur Strong, LL.D.
(London: W. Heinemann). Price 36.J. net.—
Students of the history of art will find in Mr.
Franz Wickhoff's important work much information
and intelligent criticism upon the style, both of
painting and sculpture, which flourished from the
period of Augustus to that of Constantine. The
translator in a prefatory note says: "The Art of
Rome has suffered too long, if not actual neglect,
at any rate under the imputation of being nothing
but the last chapter of the long history of Greek
art—in fact, a sort of decadent anti-climax." That
the author's treatise will do much to alter the
commonly expressed opinion as to the generally
decadent character of Roman decorative art, is
open to doubt, although it may help us to form a
more lucid idea of its exact characteristics. An
interesting chapter is devoted to the four styles of
Pompeian painting, and a valuable article relates to
the illustrations, dating from the fifth century, which
accompany the remarkable manuscript of the Book
of Genesis in the Imperial Library at Vienna, and
which are supposed to be the oldest illustrations to
the Bible that have been preserved. Fourteen
photogravure plates and a large number of repro-
ductions from photographs accompany the text.

Sandro Botticelli. By Count Plunkett.
(London: George Bell & Sons.) Price £2 2s.
net.—A new work in English upon Sandro Botti-
celli cannot fail to be welcomed by all lovers of art.
No one painter has had a greater influence than
he in the emancipation of the art of our time from
the vulgarities of eighteenth-century materialism ;
and no painter deserves our more careful study.
In Count Plunkett, Botticelli has an enthusiastic
admirer, and the chapters devoted to his life, his
characteristics and works, are most entertaining and
instructive. The numerous illustrations with
which the book abounds are, on the whole, excel-
lent, although we must take exception to the
photogravure of La Primavera, which does but
scant justice to the original It is strange that in
such a notable painting as this greater care was
not taken to more clearly and correctly translate
the details and the values of colour. Surely good
photographs of the work are available! A few
enlargements of details would add materially to the
usefulness of the volume.

George J. Pinwell and his Works. By George
C. Williamson, Litt.D. (London : George Bell &
Sons.) Price 2\s. net.— Houghton, Frederick
Walker, and Pinwell are names which will always
be associated with a certain period of English
water-colour art and of book illustration—a period
which has come to be called and will probably
hereafter be known as the " Sixties." Of the works
of George Pinwell the public probably knows much
less than of the others with whom his name is
linked, and it is well, while the memory of him is
still green, that some details of his life's work
should be recorded. Mr. Williamson's volume
is a worthy memorial, and as we turn over its leaves
and renew our acquaintance with some old familiar
woodcuts, and are delighted with the powerful
sketches and interesting water-colours reproduced
therein, we cannot but feel with his biographer
that had he who died so young been spared to
attain maturer years, his position in the art
world might probably have become a supreme
one.

Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century. Edited
by Max Rooses. (London : Sampson Low,
Marston & Co.)—This is the third volume bearing
the same title which has been published, the two
previous ones having been reviewed in The Studio
as they appeared. It is in every way a worthy com-
panion to its predecessors, being enriched with
many illustrations of great beauty. The opening
article, by A. C. Loffelt, on the work of Anton
Mauve, will be read with especial interest by that