Studio: international art (31.1904)

Reviews

of Cupids after Bartolozzi's engravings and the
design for the decoration of a ceiling are especially
fine. The characteristic compositions for Wedg-
wood are also very delightful, as are the head
and tail-pieces for the "Leonore" and Dryden's
"Fables," though the larger drawings are less
■satisfactory, the subjects being quite unsuited
to the artist's style. The various Portraits in-
terspersed throughout the volume, though they
•do not of course bear comparison with those of
their author's great contemporaries, are pleasing
and often full of character.

Oxford. Painted by John Fulleylove, R.I.
Described by Edward Thomas. (London : A. & C.
Black.) 20s. net.—All who have felt the spell of
Oxford, to which the most indifferent must sooner
or later succumb if they are admitted even to the
threshold of its inspiring life, will welcome the
appearance of this new attempt to call up pictures
from its past, and to catch the fleeting impressions
of the present. To a great extent, the expectations
which have been raised by the announcements of
the book will be realised, the illustrations after the
drawings of Mr. Fulleylove being full of charm,
though they share the limitations of the " three-
colour process," which is never successful in
the interpretation of green. It seems a pity, for
this reason, that all the drawings should have been
done in the height of summer, for the autumn tints
of the creepers on the churches and colleges give
them an added touch of poetic beauty. Another
drawback is the omission of several noteworthy
buildings, Balliol College, with its beautiful quad-
rangle haunted by its famous tame raven, for
instance, might well have claimed a prominent
position. Amongst the most beautiful of the
pictures are the Oxford, from the Sheldonian
Theatre, Oxford, from Headington Hall, and the
Interior of the Bodleian Library, the last especially
realising with great felicity its dignified architec-
ture—subdued yet rich colouring, and its strong
savour of medievalism. Mr. Fulleylove is, in fact,
thoroughly in touch with the quaint old city, but
the same can scarcely be said of his literary colla-
borates, who, in his effort to write in a light and
humorous style, has missed the serious side of his
subject, and more than once degenerated into flip-
pancy, as when he says, apropos of nothing in par-
ticular, " A don will not hesitate to make the
worst joke, in a strong and cheerful voice, in the
bookseller's shop when it is full of clever fresh-
men." Surely, more dignified treatment than this
should have been meted out to the Alma Mater
who has moulded so many noble characters, and

sent forth to do battle for the right so many of the
"perfect gentle knights" who are Oxford's best
gifts to the world.

Queer Things about Japan. By Douglas Sladen.
(London: A. Treherne & Co., Ltd.) Price 2\s.
net.—Without adding much to the general know-
ledge of Japan, Mr. Sladen has written a bright,
chatty book upon that delightful country and its
people. If Mr. Sladen does not say much that is
new, he says it in a new way, and his way is a
forcible one which compels the interest of the
reader. The illustrations are from various sources.
Some are reproductions upon a reduced scale of
modern Japanese chromo-xylographs; others in
black-and-white, are ascribed by the author to
Hokusai. We do not, however, trace the charac-
teristic touch of the master's hand in any of them
other than the view of Fujiyama which is made to
do duty as decoration for the end-papers. The
grotesque figure drawings are more characteristic
of Chinnen than of Hokusai. The " queer things "
of Japan are only queer to the stranger. They lose
their queerness when one is accustomed to them,
although, perhaps, not their intense interest.

Masterpieces selected from the Korin School. By
Shuchi Tajima. Volume I. (Tokyo: Shimbi
Shoin.)—Among the great painters who have made
Japan famous as an artistic nation, none has been
greater than Ogata Korin. The appreciation which
has been accorded to his work, not only in Europe
and America, but even in Japan itself, does not, in our
opinion, do justice to the beauty and great decorative
value of his production. Even the late William
Anderson, whose magnificent book on the "Pictorial
Art of Japan " is the finest existing one upon the
subject, failed to distinguish the great qualities of his
genius at their true value. Examples of Korin's best
work are almost unknown in the West. A few
pieces of lacquer-work, a few odd volumes of design,
form almost the entire evidence at our command.
The choice specimens in the possession of collectors
in Japan have been unknown to us, excepting from
the small reproductions in black-and-white that have
occasionally appeared in Japanese art periodicals.
That an effort should be made by his admirers to
gather together some representative examples of his
genius, and to reproduce them in such a manner that
the art-loving public may realise the greatness of his
ability, was most desirable; and the result, judging
from the first volume now before us, is most com-
mendable. We learn from the introduction to this
volume that it is intended to reproduce, in addition
to the work of Korin, examples by Kenzan, Kagei,
Shiko, Hoitsu, Ki-itsu, and other followers or