Studio: international art (42.1908)

Reviews and Notices

scholarly works has in every case gone straight to
the original documents. He makes scarcely any
attempt to work up the masses of material he has
laboriously collected into a popular narrative such
as would appeal to the general public, for he has
the greatest possible contempt for the superficial
dilettantism of the present day, and addresses his
appeal mainly to the true connoisseur and the
genuine lover of art for its own sake. On the
other hand, there does not exist a more generous
caterer for the privileged few than this most earnest
worker. Mr. Weale prefaces his work with a
chronological summary of the chief events that
affected the careers of the Van Eycks, and devotes
a considerable portion of his text to the actual
transcription, in order of date, of the more im-
portant of the documents from which he has culled
his information, supplementing his quotations by a
very^complete bibliography of all the publications
that bear even remotely upon the fortunes of the
two famous brothers. Moreover, he points the
way for other discoveries, suggesting to his suc-
cessors in the same field of research " that further
items may yet be gleaned from the municipal
accounts of towns in the Duke of Burgundy's
dominions, and perhaps also from documents in
the archives of Spain and Portugal." In the
erudite history given by Mr. Weale of the authen-
ticated works of the brothers each one is carefully
described and explained, as are also the more
important copies and engravings after it.

A Book of Caricatures. By Max Beerbohm.
(London: Methuen.) 2\s. net.—The originals of
this collection of caricatures were recently shown
at the Carfax Gallery, and we expressed ourselves
about them at the time. We confess that in one way
Mr. Max Beerbohm is a disappointment to us, for,
despite the cover of this book, a very charming red,
and the elaboration with which the plates are
reproduced, we miss in this art the exquisiteness
that is associated with Mr. Beerbohm's name. In
such caricatures as Mr. Arthur Balfour wishing he
had been born in a simpler age we do get this quality
in the style of finish, and in those of Lord Althorp
and Mr. Haddon Chambers the caricaturist lives
up to the charming binding. The Lord Lytton
and Lord Ribblesdale are also caricatures made
with a grace that becomes their author. But it is
in Lord Tweedmouth, and especially in the picture
of " Sem," that Mr. Max Beerbohm's genius is
revealed with a vivacity of touch which responds
at once to witty and satirical observation. After
this brilliance we wonder why he should tire us
with such vapid conventions as those, for instance,

with which he symbolizes the feet of Mr. Wilson
Steer and the head of Lord Northcliffe.

The Americati Pilgrims' Way in England. By
Marcus Huish, LL.B. Illustrated by Elizabeth
M. Chettle. (London : Fine Art Society.) 20j-.net.
—It was a happy thought on the part of the director
of the Fine Art Society to trace back to their original
English homes the pioneers of the exodus that
resulted in the foundation of the great American
Republic. The work, which has evidently been a
labour of love to both author and artist, includes
histories of the families of William Penn, George
Washington, General Wolfe, Benjamin Franklin,
Washington Irving, the Pilgrim Fathers (the
founders of Yale and Harvard Universities), the
Quaker settlers, and many others, no pains having
been spared to identify the sites connected with
them. The charming water-colour drawings give
sympathetic renderings of many of the surviving
homesteads that are so dear to the hearts of the
descendants of these heroes of the sixteenth cen-
tury, and, with the reproductions of details of
architecture, facsimiles of letters, inscriptions, etc.,
form a vivid and pictorial epitome of the text.

Life and Works of Vittorio Carpaccio. By
Gustav Ludwig and Pompeo Molmenti. Trans-
lated by Robert H. H. Cust. (London: John
Murray.) £2 12s. 6d. net.—The recent increase
in the cult of Vittorio Carpaccio, the most gifted
exponent of an important phase of Venetian
pictorial art, is, Signor Molmenti thinks, largely
the outcome of the aesthetic renaissance in the
lagoon city that was inaugurated a quarter of a
century ago, and was, as he fully recognises, in a
certain sense heralded by Ruskin. A pathetic
interest attaches to the work before us—an appre-
ciative study of the painter by two warm admirers—
on account of the circumstances surrounding its
inception and execution. After studying closely
the achievements of the early Venetian masters
as a whole, Signor Molmenti gradually found
himself concentrating his attention on that of
Carpaccio, and the results of his researches were
published in various periodicals. Presently, his
devotion to Carpaccio attracted the attention of
another eager worker in the same field, the German
physician whose name appears on the title-page
with his own. Herr Ludwig found himself in
middle life the victim of a painful and incurable
disease, which necessitated his migration to a
temperate climate. Imbued with an intense love of
art for its own sake, he determined to devote to its
study the few years he could hope to live, and finally
settled in Venice. Here the two collaborators

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