Studio: international art (46.1909)

Reviews and Notices

Marius, but it is unfortunately considerably spoiled
by the inadequacy of the translation, which through-
out retains a foreign ring. Beginning with a brief
review of the prosaic eighteenth century, so barren
of art production in Holland, the author gives a
most eloquent account of the great revival of
painting in the nineteenth century, inaugurated by
Israels and Jongkind and carried on by Mesdag,
Mauve, the brothers Maris and others less cele-
brated. Due consideration is also given to the
Romanticists, of whom Ary Scheffer was the chief,
and to the minor interpreters of genre and land-
scape subjects, but it is in the chapters on the
great Hague School that the interest of the volume
culminates. Mr. Preyer’s book is more than a mere
guide to the collections of paintings in Holland,
for though it will be found of great use in that
direction, its preliminary chapters give a very
clear and critical account of Dutch painting, from
the beginning of the seventeenth century to the
present day, in which he aptly defines the qualities
distinguishing the work of one master from another,
as well as those that set the art of the Low Coun-
tries, apart from that of any other country. The
opinions of the scholarly Dr. Bode will always
command respect, but some of those expressed in
the work before us will challenge contradiction,
notably his dictum that the masterstroke of Rem-
brandt was to bring the Bible story into this every-
day world, “that Franz Hals did not always over-
come the actual material properties inherent in
colour as a pigment,” and that Pieter de Hooch,
most individual of interpreters of genre, was a
connecting link between Nicolas Maas and Jan
Vanmeer. There is, moreover, a certain want of
proportion in the book, more space being given
Segers and Brouwer than to all the Flemish
Masters. It is of course only in Holland itself
that Dutch painting can be studied as a whole,
but with the aid of the excellent reproductions of
pictures in the three volumes under notice some
idea may be obtained of the remarkable continuity
of aim of the successive exponents of every branch
of art, portraiture excepted, for whereas Israels,
Mauve and their great contemporaries have nobly
carried on the old traditions, Rembrandt and Hals
have had no true successors.

Nature and Ornament. By Lewis F. Day, with
over 350 illustrations from drawings by Miss Foord.
(London : B. T. Batsford.) 5^. net.—In his “Nature
and Ornament” the well-known artist craftsman
Mr. Lewis Day goes to the very root of the matter,
for though he considers vegetable growth as the
raw material of design, giving in the numerous
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illustrations specially drawn for his book, typical
examples of that raw material, he shows that
in really successful ornament, nature plays a
secondary, sometimes even an obscure, part, the
beauty of the latter being really in proportion
to its fulfilment of conditions which have nothing
to do with nature. The motto of his book is
“Ornament for its own sake,” and throughout the
lesson he preaches is the submission of natural
form to ornament, not the subordination of orna-
ment to nature. He points out the fallacy of
Ruskin’s reasoning on the subject, and even dares
to challenge Morris’s dictum that “ornament should
tell a story or call up memories of nature,” declaring
that “when it came to designing he was better
than his word and adding, it was always a hint from
nature which set him going, but the way he departed
from nature shows that when once he got to work
he lost sight of nature, and kept always in view
the problem of design.”

The English House. By W. Shaw Sparrow.
(London : Eveleigh Nash.) 105-. 6d. net.—Mr.
Sparrow’s aim has been to supply a want—to write
a book for the plain man as opposed to the student
of architecture. He traces the history of the house
and home from its earliest origin, through its
various stages of development in England up to
the present day, discussing it mainly, it is true,
from the architectural standpoint, but with an
endeavour to eliminate as far as possible the tech-
nicalities of the subject. He has much to say, and
says it in an interesting manner, but on page 70
he makes a statement that is certainly open to
challenge, where he says “ the desire to live was
far stronger during the middle ages than it is to-
day.” To infer this from the development of the
cumbersome body armour worn in those days is
as though one were to say that we build armour-
plated vessels to-day because we are more tena-
cious of life than were the seamen of Elizabethan
times, or that greater bravery was shown by those
who went into battle in the wooden ships of
Nelson’s days than by the crews of our modern
Dreadnoughts. The illustrations are admirably
chosen for their bearing on the letterpress and are
numerous and well reproduced, though one does
not find much here that is new.

Greek Dress. By Ethel B. Abrahams, M.A.
(London : John Murray.) 9s. net.—This scholarly
and well-illustrated volume is an extension of a
thesis approved for the degree of Master of Arts
at the London University. In it the eloquent
writer, after passing in brief review the Hellenic
garments, as illustrated by the draped figures found