DOI issue:
No. 133 (April, 1904)
DOI article:Reviews
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19881#0291
Reviews
Unfortunately the familiar is rarely fully appreciated,
and it was not until armour ceased to be worn
that those who inherited it began to realise the
value of their heirlooms. A suit or sword worn
by some great ancestor, would no doubt be
treasured up for sentimental reasons, but not a
thought would be given to its intrinsic beauty;
" if," says Mr. Laking, " the armour was of
precious metal, no doubt the melting pot was
its fate, but if of simple iron it was broken up
to mend armaments of later date." Even the
remarkable examples gathered in the course of
centuries by the monarchs of England were allowed
to remain neglected and forgotten in Windsor
Castle until they were rescued from oblivion by
the late Prince Consort, who himself superintended
their arrangement, adding many priceless specimens
and making the collection one of the very finest
in Europe. The enlightened policy inaugurated
by his father has since been carried on by King
Edward ATI., by whose command the sumptuous
volume just issued—which is but the first of a
series—has been prepared under the editorship of
the present keeper of the Armoury. Mr. Laking
has drawn up a complete Catalogue raisonne of the
armour and weapons under his care, carefully
sifting evidence as to their origin and scrupulously
rejecting the apocryphal, however alluring. Illus-
trated with forty remarkably fine photogravure
plates and printed on India paper, the book will
be a perfect treasure-house of delight even to the
uninstructed lover of the beautiful, but to the
artist, the connoisseur and the historian its value
cannot be over-estimated. "To what realms of
imagination," says Mr. Laking, "are we not trans-
ported in musing on these treasures of armour and
arms that Windsor Castle possessed in mediaeval
and early Tudor times!" What memories, for
instance, are called up by the beautiful renderings
of the suits worn by Henry, Prince of Wales,
brother of Charles I., and that of Sir John Smythe,
who was active in training soldiers at the time of
the Armada, and fell into disgrace with Elizabeth
for his books on " Matters of Arms ! " How grim
are the associations of the sword that cut off the
heads of more than one thousand criminals, and
how much may be learnt by a comparison between
such simply dignified weapons as the fifteenth-
century cruciform sword, bearing the arms of Lopez
de Zuniga but the name of the Cid Campeador,
and that worn by Charles I. before he came to
the throne, with the over-ornamented examples of
later date, such as those delighted in by the
Hanoverian monarchs !
272
The Architectural Association Sketch-book. Third
Series, Vol. VII. ; 1903. Edited by William
G. B. Lewis and William A. Pite. (London :
The Architectural Association, 56, Great Marl-
borough Street, W.)—The four parts forming the
volume for 1903 of this interesting publication
have reached us. They bring home to those
whose memory carries them back to the first
number of the first series of the Architectural
Association Sketch-book the great improvement
in the publication since its early days. The
selection of subjects is wider and more catholic.
The seventy - eight illustrations are, as a rule,
immeasurably better drawn, and the method and
system obtaining in their arrangement, and the
index, show careful and thoughtful editorial manage-
ment. A particularly useful feature is the dating,
wherever practicable, of the subject from which
the drawing is made. In many cases, of course,
especially where dealing with Gothic or mediaeval
work, this ascription of date must needs be con-
jectural ; but with regard to Renaissance and post-
Renaissance buildings it has generally been possible
for the draughtsman and the editors to assign either
a closely approximate or an actual date. The
column showing these, therefore, throws a useful
and an interesting sidelight on the predilection as
to period of the architectural student of to-day.
One is able to see from it clearly a pronounced
bias for sketching and measuring, no longer the
Romanesque and Gothic work of the early volumes
of the Sketch-book, but the architecture of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and particu-
larly the former. Taking the average of the sixty-
five plates comprised in the English section we
find, as a matter of fact, that we obtain the year
1610 as representing the mean of the ideal period
of the architectural students responsible for this
volume. We note, by the way, a large proportion
of English subjects selected for illustration, as
compared with French, German, Italian, and
Spanish. The latter number amongst them only
thirteen buildings, as against thirty-three of the
former. We would particularly draw attention to
a very careful and admirable series of illustrations
by Mr. Alfred C. Bossom, giving plans, sections,
and details of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street;
the drawings of Christ's Hospital (now no more)
by Mr, A. E. Richardson ; and the sketches in
colour of glazed wall-tiling in Seville by Mr. A. N.
Prentice.
English Literature : an Illustrated Record. Four
volumes. Price i6i-. net each volume. (London :
Heinemann.)—The first volume of this publication
Unfortunately the familiar is rarely fully appreciated,
and it was not until armour ceased to be worn
that those who inherited it began to realise the
value of their heirlooms. A suit or sword worn
by some great ancestor, would no doubt be
treasured up for sentimental reasons, but not a
thought would be given to its intrinsic beauty;
" if," says Mr. Laking, " the armour was of
precious metal, no doubt the melting pot was
its fate, but if of simple iron it was broken up
to mend armaments of later date." Even the
remarkable examples gathered in the course of
centuries by the monarchs of England were allowed
to remain neglected and forgotten in Windsor
Castle until they were rescued from oblivion by
the late Prince Consort, who himself superintended
their arrangement, adding many priceless specimens
and making the collection one of the very finest
in Europe. The enlightened policy inaugurated
by his father has since been carried on by King
Edward ATI., by whose command the sumptuous
volume just issued—which is but the first of a
series—has been prepared under the editorship of
the present keeper of the Armoury. Mr. Laking
has drawn up a complete Catalogue raisonne of the
armour and weapons under his care, carefully
sifting evidence as to their origin and scrupulously
rejecting the apocryphal, however alluring. Illus-
trated with forty remarkably fine photogravure
plates and printed on India paper, the book will
be a perfect treasure-house of delight even to the
uninstructed lover of the beautiful, but to the
artist, the connoisseur and the historian its value
cannot be over-estimated. "To what realms of
imagination," says Mr. Laking, "are we not trans-
ported in musing on these treasures of armour and
arms that Windsor Castle possessed in mediaeval
and early Tudor times!" What memories, for
instance, are called up by the beautiful renderings
of the suits worn by Henry, Prince of Wales,
brother of Charles I., and that of Sir John Smythe,
who was active in training soldiers at the time of
the Armada, and fell into disgrace with Elizabeth
for his books on " Matters of Arms ! " How grim
are the associations of the sword that cut off the
heads of more than one thousand criminals, and
how much may be learnt by a comparison between
such simply dignified weapons as the fifteenth-
century cruciform sword, bearing the arms of Lopez
de Zuniga but the name of the Cid Campeador,
and that worn by Charles I. before he came to
the throne, with the over-ornamented examples of
later date, such as those delighted in by the
Hanoverian monarchs !
272
The Architectural Association Sketch-book. Third
Series, Vol. VII. ; 1903. Edited by William
G. B. Lewis and William A. Pite. (London :
The Architectural Association, 56, Great Marl-
borough Street, W.)—The four parts forming the
volume for 1903 of this interesting publication
have reached us. They bring home to those
whose memory carries them back to the first
number of the first series of the Architectural
Association Sketch-book the great improvement
in the publication since its early days. The
selection of subjects is wider and more catholic.
The seventy - eight illustrations are, as a rule,
immeasurably better drawn, and the method and
system obtaining in their arrangement, and the
index, show careful and thoughtful editorial manage-
ment. A particularly useful feature is the dating,
wherever practicable, of the subject from which
the drawing is made. In many cases, of course,
especially where dealing with Gothic or mediaeval
work, this ascription of date must needs be con-
jectural ; but with regard to Renaissance and post-
Renaissance buildings it has generally been possible
for the draughtsman and the editors to assign either
a closely approximate or an actual date. The
column showing these, therefore, throws a useful
and an interesting sidelight on the predilection as
to period of the architectural student of to-day.
One is able to see from it clearly a pronounced
bias for sketching and measuring, no longer the
Romanesque and Gothic work of the early volumes
of the Sketch-book, but the architecture of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and particu-
larly the former. Taking the average of the sixty-
five plates comprised in the English section we
find, as a matter of fact, that we obtain the year
1610 as representing the mean of the ideal period
of the architectural students responsible for this
volume. We note, by the way, a large proportion
of English subjects selected for illustration, as
compared with French, German, Italian, and
Spanish. The latter number amongst them only
thirteen buildings, as against thirty-three of the
former. We would particularly draw attention to
a very careful and admirable series of illustrations
by Mr. Alfred C. Bossom, giving plans, sections,
and details of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street;
the drawings of Christ's Hospital (now no more)
by Mr, A. E. Richardson ; and the sketches in
colour of glazed wall-tiling in Seville by Mr. A. N.
Prentice.
English Literature : an Illustrated Record. Four
volumes. Price i6i-. net each volume. (London :
Heinemann.)—The first volume of this publication