Studio: international art (29.1903)

Reviews

excellent art publications of the best English
houses. It has all the thoroughness characteristic
of German scholarship, without the heaviness
which is, unfortunately, generally inseparable from
Teutonic learning. The appearance of the pages
is somewhat marred by the number of notes, many
of which might well have been incorporated with
the text, and the paper cover somewhat detracts
from the general appearance of the book ; but
these slight drawbacks may well be condoned in
view of its other sterling qualities.

Architectural Association Sketch-Book. Third
Series. Vol. VI. Edited by William G. B. Lewis
and W. A. Pite. (London : Architectural Associa-
tion, 56 Great Marlborough Street, W.)—We have
received the 1902 volume of the third series of
this publication. (The index, we may note, refers
to this as the fifth series, the title-page and the
plates themselves as the third.) It gives, as did
its predecessors, a collection of workmanlike
drawings and sketches, measured or otherwise,
of architectural work in England, France and Italy.
The present series has the added merit of giving
in every case an attribution of date, or where this
is not absolutely known, a careful approximation
to it. It is interesting to note the trend of
study of the architectural student of to-day, for
whom these illustrations are offered for pur-
poses of education and suggestion. It was rare
in the earlier volumes, some twenty or twenty-five
years ago, to meet with other illustrations than
that of English church work, relieved occasionally
with examples of simple domestic work in the
shape of half-timbered cottages and the like. In
the present volume, on the contrary, domestic
architecture is all to the fore, as regards English
work at all events. Out of the fifty-three plates
giving examples illustrating old architecture in
England, thirty-eight deal with domestic work,
and in nearly every instance with that of the first
half of the seventeenth century. The eleven
French examples, however, are all confined to
ecclesiastical work, including, by the bye, a fine
series of drawings by Mr. E. H. Bennetts of the
Portail Royal of Chartres Cathedral. Perhaps the
finest drawings in the volume are the very complete
measured set of Bolsover Castle, drawn with great
care and vigour by Mr. F. W. Gregory. Another fine
seventeenth-century house, illustrated by Mr. Edwin
F. Reynolds, is John Thorpe's Aston Hall. We
hardly think Plate 46 does justice to Mr. Harold
Gibbon's drawing of the interesting Renaissance
font cover at Walpole St. Peter's, but otherwise the
illustrations are well selected and well reproduced.
3°4

Die Natur in der Kunst. By Felix Rosen.
(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.) 12 marks.—These studies
are full of interest, considering as they do the works
of the great masters from a comparatively original
point of view. Mr. Rosen reviews the chief
masterpieces of the Italian, German, Dutch, and
Flemish painters in chronological order, and en-
deavours with fair success to trace in them the
gradual evolution of landscape art. The chapter
in which Masaccio and Jan van Eyck are com-
pared is a specially noteworthy one, but it is a pity
that the reproduction of the Adoration of the Lamb
should be so unsatisfactory. It contrasts unfavour-
ably with the other examples given, many of which
are excellently translated into black and white.

/ Gaggini da Bissone. By Luigi Augosto
Cervetto. (Milan : Ulrico Hoepli.)—There is
something almost pathetic in the earnest effort of
Signor Cervetto to revive interest in the Gaggini
family by the publication of this costly Italian
monograph on their work, which unfortunately, in
spite of all the labour and money which have been
lavished upon it, is scarcely likely to appeal to a
wide public. "Genoa," pleads the author, "has
never been properly appreciated, because of the
modesty of her artists and her habit of dwelling in
silence upon the glories of her past." Even
Eugene Muntz, most fair and cosmopolitan of
critics, has failed to do her justice, and has ignored
the Gaggini altogether; yet from the fifteenth to
the nineteenth century the City of Palaces has never
been without a representative of that richly-gifted
family, who have left behind them many excellent
examples of their skill in architecture and sculpture,
some of which are admirably reproduced in Mr.
Cervetto's book. Amongst them may be specially
noted the bas-reliefs of the Cappella di S. Giam-
battista, by Domenico and Elia Gaggini; the Gate-
way of the Palazzo Quaitara Gia d'Oria and the
Bas-reliefs of the Adoration of the Kings in the Via
Orefici, by Giovanni Gaggini; with the portal of the
Ex-Palazzo d'Oria, by Page Gaggini, which is full
of dignity and Oriental feeling. Unfortunately, how-
ever, an examination of the series of plates after the
famous Tabernacolo of the Certosa di Pavia, leaves
a melancholy impression of the reality of the
decadence which had set in when it was produced.

Boston Days. By Lilian Whiting. (London:
Sampson Low, Marston & Co.) xos. 6d. net.—
Phis collection of notices of celebrated people
who lived in Boston during the nineteenth
century is very pleasant reading, although it
will scarcely appeal with equal force to the
European as to the American public. The