Studio: international art (36.1906)

Reviews

various palaces were dispersed. Fortunately, how-
ever, partly through the generosity of those who
had purchased them, many of the pictures were
eventually recovered, as proved by the catalogue
of the art treasures owned by Charles II. at
his death. William III. also added some good
Dutch pictures, and the collection grew slowly
but surely until what may be called the new golden
age of art patronage was ushered in by the marriage
of Queen Victoria to the enthusiastic connoisseur
Prince Albert. Together the young couple re-
arranged all the royal art possessions, bringing
order out of chaos, filling in by new purchases
some of the gaps in the continuity of good examples
of the past, whilst they also bought many important
paintings by living English and foreign masters.
The work begun by his parents but left in abeyance
during the long widowhood of his mother was
completed soon after his accession by King
Edward, who had the whole collection carefully
classified by the able editor of the present volumes,
with the result that many valuable pictures were
brought to light the veiy existence of which had
been forgotten. His Majesty also transferred to
the Royal collection many fine works in his private
possession and it may now be said to form a kind
of epitome of all the chief schools, the Dutch,
Flemish, and English being the best represented.
The arduous task of reproducing the pictures selected
for the monumental work prepared by order of His
Majesty the King was entrusted to the Fine Art
Publishing Society, a wise selection in view of the
many triumphs already achieved by it. That the
experts employed have in this case excelled them-
selves will be admitted by all who are fortunate
enough to be able to examine these exquisite photo-
gravures, for with very few exceptions they render
with remarkable fidelity the actual tone values and
other essential qualities of the paintings, resembling
in their velvety texture the best mezzotints. Very
especially noteworthy are the portrait of Johann
Christian Fischer, by Gainsborough, which has caught
exactly the peculiar manner of the artist; the various
portraits by Rembrandt, that almost equal the
originals in their wonderful chiaroscuro; the portraits
of Charles I, Henrietta Maria, and the little Prince
of Wales, by Hendrik Gerutz Potz—the last a true
masterpiece of great historical value ; the Letter, by
Gerard Ter Borch, and the Game of Cards, by Pieter
de Hooch, both full of light, though the shadows in
the latter are rather too black, Titian’s Lovers
superbly fine in its translation of colour, the portrait
of the young Infant of Spain, Don Balthazar
Carlos, rendering every texture of his ornate costume
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with absolute truth; the Bianca of Lord Leighton,
that is simply flooded with light, and the two exqui-
sitely beautiful, but widely different landscapes, the
Windmill, by Jacob Van Ruisdael, and the Gathering
Storm, by Titian, both full of atmosphere, catching
in each case the sentiment of the scene, the
former absolutely peaceful, the latter haunted by a
feeling of approaching turmoil.

The Seven Angels of the Renascence. By Sir
Wyke Bayliss, K.B., F.S.A. (London : Sir Isaac
Pitman & Sons.) 105. 6d. net.—In his new
volume the President of the Royal Society of
British Artists claims to have set before his readers,
in a series of living pictures, a brief history of the
renascence of art, beginning with Cimabue and
ending with Claude. He gives to the leaders in
the great movement the name of angels, for he
looks upon them as messengers of a new revelation,
each of whom brought to the service of art his own
special and divine gift; and, after summing up the
characteristics of each, he proceeds to consider
their work in detail. Unfortunately, however, it
can scarcely be said that he has really contributed
anything new to the vast mass of literature on the
same subject already in circulation. In his en-
deavour to include everything he has wandered off
into digressions that have nothing to do with art;
and his desire to be original has in several cases
brought him dangerously near the comic as when
he says, “ Hercules died miserably because his
wife gave him a shirt not properly aired,” adding,

“ I know this is not Ovid’s way of telling the story
of the shirt of Nessus, but I have as much right to
my interpretation as he had.”

The English Lakes. Painted by A. Heaton
Cooper. Described by William T. Palmer.
(London : A. & C. Black). 2os.—Beautiful and

romantic though the English Lakes undoubtedly
are, it cannot be denied that they do not lend
themselves as readily to pictorial treatment as do
many less celebrated districts. As a matter

of fact, they have not inspired any of the greatest
masterpieces of landscape painting, for they are
wanting in the rugged charm that appeals so
forcibly to the artist, and even Turner seems
to have been to some extent crippled by their
tameness. Mr. Cooper is, therefore, not to
be blamed if his careful drawings — of which
the Head of Buttermere, Yewdale—Corn's ton, and
Lodore and Denventwater are perhaps the best
—are not so full of attraction as are those of Mr.
Talbot Kelly in his “Egypt,” and Mr.W)llie in his
“ London to the Nore.” The Lake Country is really
the land of the poet, not of the painter, and as such