Studio: international art (40.1907)

Reviews and Notices

Methuen.) 25s. net.—Although in his useful con-
tribution to the well-known Connoisseur’s Library
Mr. Dillon deals with glass in the restricted sense
of verrerie, or vessels of glass, and verroterie, or
ornaments in glass, such as beads, etc., using the
French words for want of exact English equiva-
lents, he prepares the way in his introduction for a
just appreciation of the essential characteristics of
those two branches of the glass-maker’s art by
giving a brief history of the craft in general. With
occasional gaps in the continuity of the story, when
temporary causes brought about a break in the
production of aesthetic glass, he traces the develop-
ment of the various branches of the art from the
earliest times to the present day, dividing his subject
into three periods, the first dating from prehistoric
days to the discovery of glass-blowing, the second
extending from the beginning of the Christian era to
the end of the eighteenth century, and the third, to
which he gives the name of the industrial period,
when the manufacture of glass became an im-
portant craft in England and France, taking in the
whole of the nineteenth century. The technical
mysteries of the craft are admirably elucidated, as,
for instance, in the case of the stipple or dotted
method of the Dutch of the early seventeenth
century, by means of which a design of the utmost
delicacy—a mere breath, as it were—is made to
appear on the surface of the glass ; and again when
the different kinds of Venetian beads are explained.
Noteworthy also are the descriptions of seventeenth
and eighteenth-century Oriental glass, in which,
with many other fine examples of the products of
Asia, is one of a very remarkable Indian basin with
white flowers on a gold ground. The only draw-
back to a publication that will delight every con-
noisseur is the strangely inadequate account of
modern glass, which is cursorily dismissed in four
pages. Only three names, those of the American
Tiffany and the Frenchmen Emil Galle and Henri
Cros, are mentioned, the English Powell, who re-
presents the oldest glass manufacturing firm of
Great Britain, and the Italian Salviati being alike
ignored. The volume contains numerous excellent
illustrations, many in colour.

Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen. By
W. R. Lethaby. (London : Duckworth.) 12s. 6d.
net.—The characteristic feature of this new work,
the outcome of twelve years of close research, is
its recognition of the importance of individual
craftsmen in the evolution of the great Abbey.
As the author remarks, it has hitherto been
assumed that nothing is known, or may be known,
of the architects of our mediaeval buildings; but, he
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adds, so great is the mass of records which have
been preserved regarding their erection, that an
account of the builders of several of them can be
made out with some fulness, and he claims that
Westminster Abbey is better documented than any
of them. After giving in his Introduction a general
account of the beautiful old church from the art
point of view, laying special stress on the surviving
details, however fragmentary, of the original build-
ings of each period, he proceeds to identify the work
of a number of builders, masons, sculptors, painters,
metal-workers, &c., including Masters Henry of
Westminster, Robert de Beverley, Richard of
Wytham, Thomas of Canterbury, William Ramsay,
Alexander of Abingdon, William of Ireland, Richard
of Reading, William of London, Walter of Durham,
Hugh of St. Albans, William Trel and others of lesser
importance, supplementing his narratives with many
illustrations of typical examples of structural and
decorative work. The mischief done by unskilful
restoration and neglect of the simplest means of
preservation, as well as by wilful destruction, is
forcibly and painfully brought out, but the domin-
ant feeling of the reader is one of thankfulness
that so much still remains to bear witness to the
religious enthusiasm that, as in the great Continental
cathedrals, inspired the whole army of workmen
whose privilege it was to aid in raising up ar.d
adorning the grand fabric to the glory of God.

Original Drawings of the Dutch and Flemish
Schools in the Print Room of the State Museum at
Amsterdam. Selected by the Director, E. W. Moes. *
(The Hague: M. Nijhoff; London: Williams &
Norgate.) Parts VII.-X., jfr 145. net each.—The
first half - dozen instalments of this work having
already been noticed in these columns, it only
remains for us to repeat, now that the concluding
instalments have made their appearance, that the
unique series of reproductions constituting the work
cannot fail to be of the utmost value alike to the
connoisseur interested in the great masters of the
Low Countries and to the art student. To the latter,
especially, their importance cannot be overrated,
on account of the insight they give into the many
and diverse methods pursued by these old masters.
They show, too, that these masters, numbering nearly
a hundred and counting among them most of those
who have made the Dutch and Flemish Schools
famous for all time, assiduously cultivated the art
of drawing from nature as a foundation for their
permanent work, giving point in this respect to
Carlyle’s definition of genius as an infinite capacity
for taking pains. In our previous notice we referred
to the numerous examples among these drawings