Studio: international art (32.1904)

Reviews

joy of the collector. Fortunately, however, as
is pointed out by Mr. Masse, it was long
customary to use pewter for ecclesiastical as
well as domestic purposes, and with many fine
English tankards, German flagons and dishes, etc.,
examples are included of French and Flemish
benitiers and chalices, some of them of fine work-
manship. Mr. Masse is of opinion that the true
art of pewter-making can never really be revived ;
the specimens exhibited by modern manufacturers
having none of the charm of the genuine old article.
The alloy used, he says, is too crude and white,
too brittle and hard, and no one has yet succeeded
in giving to it the soft pearly-grey colour that is
so pleasing to the eye.

Adventures among Pictures. By Charles Lewis
Hind. (London : A. & C. Black.) <js. 6d. net—
The republication of fugitive essays is rarely a
success ; and interesting as are some of the contents
of the present volume, it can scarcely be claimed
that it is an exception to that rule. Most of the
chatty dissertations in it on things artistic first
appeared in the " Academy " under their author's
editorship, and were fully in place there, but they
do not lend themselves very satisfactorily to the
making of an harmonious volume. Mr. Hind
never forgets himself in his enthusiasm for the great
exponents of art, with whom, after all, he has but a
bowing acquaintance, and he is disposed to give
too much prominence to his own superficial im-
pressions. He does not like Mancini, he says, so
he leaves Mancini alone; and to him Bernhard
Berenson "is of all living critics of classic art the
most competent and the most distinguished." Yet
surely it is a straining of terms to use the word
classic here, for is it on the masters of the Re-
naissance that Mr. Berenson has concentrated his
attention ? To Rodin, Mr. Hind further remarks,
" there are but two luminous and self-evident things,
himself and Nature"; yet is it not the complete
subordination of self to his subject that is one of
the chief factors in the great French sculptor's pre-
eminence? With the exception of the Woman's
Head, after Rodin, the Lord Ribblesdale, after
Sergant, and the Venice, after Moffat Lindner, the
illustrations are, moreover, very inferior to those
in Messrs. Black's other publications, such as
the "Oxford" and the "World Pictures." The
Death of Procris, after Piero del Cosimo, and
the Knitting, after Segantini, are almost carica-
tures of the originals, so crude and harsh are
their colouring.

Les Questions Esthetiques Contemporaines. By
Robert de la Sizeranne. (Paris: Hachette et
270

Cie.) 3 francs 50.—This new volume ot essays
from the accomplished pen of the well-known
French critic, whose " English contemporary Art"
attracted so much attention on its first appearance
in 1896, is as full of pregnant and witty observa-
tions as any of its author's previous publications.
"Many and many a time, for instance," he remarks,
" has the tyranny of habit been denounced, but
never that of the love of novelty;" yet, in his
opinion, the latter is more fruitful of evil results
than the former, leading, as it so often does, to
gross injustice. In the " Questions Esthetiques,"
however, it is with the struggle of modern art to
free itself from the trammels of habit that M. De la
Sizeranne has elected to deal, his subjects being on
Ironwork aesthetically treated, the Balance-sheet
of Impressionism, Modern Costume in Contem-
porary Sculpture, the Claims or Photography to
be considered an Art, and Art Prisons, in the last
of which he dwells pathetically on art shut out
from life and caged in museums. One and all,
the essays teem with sarcastic humour, and display
a remarkable grip of the tendencies of the day;
but perhaps the " Bilan de l'lmpressionisme," with
its masterly summary of the upshot of its latest
phases, is the most characteristic of its author's
virile and caustic style.

Idees Vivantes. By Camille Mauclair. (Paris :
Libraire de l'Art ancien et moderne.) fr. 3.50.—
The title of this unpretending little volume is a
true earnest of its contents, so living, so virile,
and so original are the ideas enumerated in it,
so eloquent and so vibrant the language in which
they are expressed. Perhaps the most delightful
of the essays are those on Auguste Rodin and
Eugene Carriere, between whom M. Mauclair re-
cognises a strong spiritual affinity—widely different,
as are necessarily their modes of giving voice
to their conceptions. The recent bust portraits
of women by the sculptor and the painter are,
in the opinion of this shrewd observer, thoroughly
akin, both having the same veiled and mysterious
charm, their contours illuminated by a vibrating
radiance, quite unlike the crude, dry light char-
acteristic of the ordinary bust. The later essays
will appeal to a more restricted audience, dealing
as they do with such comparatively abstruse
subjects as what the author calls " the Religion
of the Orchestra," "the Scientific Spirit of Modern
Literature," and the " Identity and Fusion of the
Arts;" but they are one and all the utterances of
a man, who is not only thoroughly in touch with
the most advanced thought of the day, but also
a pioneer of that of the future.