Studio: international art (49.1910)

Reviews and Notices

it is in this light the author writes; his book is
not on the actual technics of garden making, and
it is at its best when it leaves new motifs alone.
In this the title perhaps might be amended.

A Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings in the
National Loan Exhibition, 1909—1910. (London :
Heinemann.) 42s. net.—The recent collection of
masterpieces exhibited at the Grafton Galleries
in aid of the National Gallery Funds, was the
most remarkable assemblage of works by the great
masters in private ownership which has been
organized during the past forty years; and not
only those who were fortunate enough to see the
collection, but all lovers of the highest types of art,
will be glad that the event has not been allowed
to pass without a permanent record of its treasures
being made available for posterity. This has taken
the shape of a very handsomely got-up catalogue
in which all the works exhibited are set forth
seriatim with the usual details, and a large number
of them are reproduced, the majority in photo-
gravure and a few in colour. These reproductions
are excellent, and, as Sir Charles Holroyd points
out in his introductory remarks, they will be of
material use in the solution of certain questions
which have been raised in regard to the attribution
of some of the works.

Manet and the Impressionists. By Theodore
Duret; translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch,
M.A. (London: Grant Richards.) 12s. 6d. net.
A Handbook of Modern French Painting. By D.
Cady Eaton. (London : Gay & Hancock, Ltd.)
8j-. 6d. net. Stories of the French Artists. By P.
M. Turner and C. H. Collins Baker. (London :
Chatto & Windus.) 7s. 6d. net. The Higher Life
in Art. By John La Farge. (London : Fisher
Unwin.) 8j. 6d. net. •— Of late years English
people have had the works of the Barbizon painters
and the Impressionists at their very doors, thanks
to various exhibitions in London, and it is there-
fore perhaps natural that several books on French
painting should appear at once. Of the four
under review that of Mons. Theodore Duret must
be regarded as of chief importance. M. Duret was
one of the most important eyewitnesses of the
difficult, noble battle of Manet and the French
Impressionists, and his book enables us to realise
at what a price to the individual artists their con-
tribution to the science of painting was made. The
cold shoulder was their lot, not only from the
academies, the public, and the dealers, but also the
critics as well, with such isolated exceptions as
Mons. Duret himself and Emile Zola. Painting
will always be richer for the introduction of the
166

science of values, and though we may now perceive
that the Impressionists only laboured one set of
truths out of all proportion to the always unwritten
rules of art, it must be recognized that painting
had literally exhausted every one of the old con-
ventions, and could only have re-birth through
such an innovation. All this seems obvious enough,
yet in Mr. Cady Eaton’s book we find an old-
fashioned grudge against the Impressionists, an
echo of the tone assumed upon their first appear-
ance. Mr. Eaton strives to abide by the title of
his book, and gives an account rather than a criti-
cism of the various French schools from Watteau
to the Impressionists, and to students beginning
the study of French painting the book should
prove of valuable assistance. The book by
Messrs. Turner and Collins Baker covers, of course,
much of the same ground, but begins with the
Clouets and ends with Delacroix. The criticism in
this instance is clear-sighted and attractively
written, and we are glad to find Mr. Collins
Baker, who writes the last half, putting David in
his place — a far lower one than Mr. Eaton,
for instance, would like to acknowledge. Mr. La
Farge’s book consists of a series of lectures
inaugurating the Scammon Course at the Art
Institute of Chicago, and it is evident that he has
wished to retain the colloquialisms of the spoken
lecture. Mr. La Farge, however, is a thinker, and
one who is perfectly aware of the spirit that gives
meaning to the letter of individual craft. His
book can be regarded as a true appreciation of
the Barbizon School. It shows great intimacy
with its subject and discrimination of that
sincerity of purpose which in itself puts the lives
of the painters of that school, as well as their art
—and the writer confines himself to their art—on
such a high plane. All these four books are
illustrated with reproductions, those in Mons.
Duret’s volume being particularly fine.

Vergleichende Formenlehre des Ornamentes und
der Pflanze. Von E. Meurer. (Dresden:
Gerhard Kiilitmann.) Cloth, Mks. 60.—This
elaborate and very copiously illustrated treatise on
the comparative morphology of ornament and of
plants—probably the most comprehensive and
systematic work of the kind that has yet appeared—
brings art into close relation with science. Though
it touches incidentally upon forms of ornament
classed as geometrical or derived from the animal
world, its chief concern is with the forms derived
from the plant world—the principal source of
ornament among the civilized races of mankind
and one which has been utilized in myriads of