Studio: international art (39.1907)

Reviews and Notices

his own long and successful practice has provided
him with. Mr. East is of those who strongly
advocate, as Ruskin did, that a painter should
approach any object with as deep a knowledge of
the characteristics of that object as he can. We
cannot think of any painter who could be a better
guide than Mr. East. He is not contemptuous of
the beginner, and he has a literary faculty which
enables him to explain his meaning very clearly.
He wisely spends his energies in trying to
get the student to observe always very carefully
the subtler phenomena of nature, and he does
this by pointing out the effect of the colours of
different objects upon each other when seen in
juxtaposition, and the effect of reflection from one
thing to another. By telling the pupil where he
may expect to find these effects and under what
circumstances, he helps him to search for necessary
truths and right things. Discoveries which will help
the student in his painting must sooner or later result
from thus looking at nature in a painter-like way.

The Fine Art Collection of Glasgow. (Glasgow:
James Maclehose.) £2 2s. net.—In his preface
to the series of beautiful photogravure repro-
ductions of the chief masterpieces in the Fine
Art Gallery of Glasgow, that include good examples
of the work of Titian, Franz Hals, Rembrandt,
Teniers, Jan Steen, Raeburn, Constable and
Turner, as well as of many still living artists of
note, such as Orchardson and Israels, the well-
known curator tells the whole story of the
foundation and growth of the collection that
seems likely as time goes on to become an even
greater treasure-house to the student than it is
now, so many are the additions constantly made
to it by bequest or purchase. Mr. James Paton
pays a just tribute to the brothers Foulis, who in
1753 founded the Glasgow Academy of the Fine
Arts, that, though disastrous to them and their
patrons, really sowed a seed that has borne
excellent fruit ; and he dwells on the pathetic
circumstance that the true originator of the present
gallery, Mr. Archibald McClennan, died deeply in
debt in 1861, after having, the year before, be-
queathed the nucleus of the present collection to
his fellow-townsmen, who at first seemed likely to
be unable to secure possession of it. Thanks,
however, to the public spirit of the Town Council,
the paintings and the buildings containing them
were, in spite of bitter opposition, bought for a
sum sufficient to satisfy the testator's creditors,
though far below their intrinsic value.

Decken und Wdnde jilr das mcderne Haus. Von
M. J.Gradl. (Stuttgart: Julius Hoffmann.) Mk.^o.

364

—The author of this work is a well-known archi-
tect, painter and designer now residing in Stuttgart,
but a native of Munich. He has built and decor-
ated many houses in Zurich, Linz, Stuttgart and
other German towns, and here from his own
experience gives valuable hints to others for ceiling
and wall decoration. The necessity of such works
is obvious, for the small masters are eager to be
up-to-date in their work, though they themselves
cannot originate designs. The author, who is also
editor of "Moderne Bauform" (J. Hoffmann,
Stuttgart), a monthly journal of architecture, has
till now published few of his own designs, his
modesty being the reason for not having courted
publicity for his work; but now that he has over-
come this, the results here presented of his studies
and experience will be welcomed by those in-
terested in the decoration of homes.

Touraine and its Story. By Anne Macdonnell,
with coloured illustrations by Amy B. Atkinson.
(London : Dent.) 21s.—Yet another book on
Touraine, and one that, in spite of all the competi-
tors already in the field, will undoubtedly hold its
own, so beautiful are many of the illustrations it con-
tains, so freshly is the apparently inexhaustible theme
treated. Miss Atkinson has known how to select
the most effective points of view, the most seductive
atmospheric conditions, and has, moreover, in many
cases skilfully contrasted the old-world character
of the historic buildings represented with suggestive
episodes of the everyday life of the present time.
The Place Pennereau, Tours; Old[Manor, Tours ;
Azay-le-Rideau, Montresol, and, above all, the Pas-
toral on the Cher, Little Shepherdess, Amboise,
Preuilly-sur-Claise, and Chinon from the Quay are
amongst the most successful reproductions of
sketches in oil that have yet been produced : true
poems in colour. The writer of the new and
exhaustive study of the "land of rivers," as
Touraine is aptly called, is intimately acquainted
with the literature in which the lovers of the fair
province have voiced their undying admiration, and
properly recognising that a country's best praise is
that which comes fiom the heart of her own sons,
has drawn upon De Vigny, Balzac and Rabelais, but
she has not neglected the almost equally eloquent
outsiders, Alcuin, Bentivoglio, Florio and the best
of their modern successors. Very specially interest-
ing are her chapters on Tours, where she spent the
nouvanie of its patron saint, St. Martin; Loches, the
story of which she tells from the beginning of the
hundred years war to the marriage of Charles XII.
to the widowed Anne of Brittany; Chenonceaux,
the capricious, fickle character of which she skil-