Studio: international art (56.1912)

Reviews and Notices

during the middle ages and later centuries, till we
come to the present day, with the divers methods of
rapid transit on the earth and through the air by
electric, steam, or petrol-driven machines. The
very interesting text is well illustrated by many
reproductions after early drawings and old en-
gravings and prints, and an excellent feature is the
series of plates in colour after originals by Eugene
Courboin, Delaspre, and Bernard Boutet de
Monvel, representing various historical and present-
day scenes with the contemporary carriages and
vehicles.

Festive Publication to Commemorate the Two
HundredthJubilee of the Oldest European China Fac-
tory,Meissen. (Meissen: Kgl.Porzellanmanufaktur.)
£2.—Most people know by this time that what in
England is commonly called “ Dresden ” china is
made at Meissen, about fourteen miles distant from
the Saxon “ Residenzstadt.” It is quite true that
the factory was at first located in Dresden, but after
a very short time it was removed to Meissen in the
year 1710. And there it now is, an extensive
organisation yielding a considerable revenue to the
Government of Saxony, to whom it was transferred
by the Crown in 1831. The volume before us has
for its object to present a resumt of the history and
present organisation of the factory, and is in every
sense a worthy memorial of the institution. The
general history of the factory is the subject of nine
chapters contributed by Prof. K. Berling, which, as
they are based on researches among the archives of
the factory, may be accepted as entirely trustworthy ;
and the same may be said of Dr. Heintze’s paper
on “The Development of the Chemico-Technical
Management from the Beginning to the Present
Time.” There is also a paper on the general
organisation of the factory by Privy Councillor
Gesell. Instructive as the letterpress is, however,
the great feature of interest in this volume is the
sumptuous way in which it is illustrated, for besides
Several hundred text illustrations there are over
forty plates hors texte, not a few of them in colours,
exhibiting a large number of the finest productions
of these famous works. The actual number of
pieces illustrated in the volume must be consider-
ably over a thousand, and of the quality of the
reproductions in general we may say that they do
credit to those responsible for them, especially
those in colour which are made direct from the
objects by the firm of Brockhaus in Leipzig.

On the Art of the Theatre. By Edward Gordon
Craig. (London: Heinemann.) 6s. net.—The
argument of Mr. Gordon Craig’s book practically
amounts to this, which we extract from the middle

of it: “ It is impossible for a work of art ever to
be produced where more than one brain is permitted
to direct; and if works of art are not seen in the
Theatre this one reason is a sufficient one, though
there are plenty more.” The book is made up of a
series of articles in which the mechanical realism of
the modern theatre is exposed and a plea entered
for further experiment in stage effect. The in-
valuable element of the book is that in which new
ideals are formulated. Here Mr. Craig opens up a
new world about which the drawings—with which
the book is lavishly embellished—are extraordinarily
suggestive; but he gives us nothing practical to
begin on in bridging the gulf to his dream of the
future stage. We are sorry to see him repudiating
the part that can be played in the reform of the art
of the theatre by painters. The imaginative vision
which he requires of his ideal stage-director will, we
think, only be found among painters ; and there is
more possibility of their adapting themselves to the
medium of the theatre than of his eloquence ever
lifting the servants of the theatre into possession of
the rare gift of imaginative vision.

A Catalogue Raisonni of the Works of the Most
Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century.
By C. Hofstede de Croot. Trans, and ed. by
Edward G. Hawke. Vol. IV. (London: Mac-
millan and Co.) 25s-. net.—Jacob van Ruisdael,
Meindert Hobbema, Adriaen van de Velde, and
Paulus Potter are the masters whose works are
described in this latest instalment of Dr. Hofstede de
Groot’s “ Catalogue Raisonn£,” and of this famous
quartet the oeuvre of the first occupies as much
space as that of all the others combined, there being
to Ruisdael’s name considerably over a thousand
works, executed in the course of a career which
terminated in the workhouse when the artist was
not much over fifty. Hobbema’s output was scarcely
more than a fourth of Ruisdael’s, though he lived
to be seventy, but his artistic career seems to have
come to an end nearly forty years earlier, when he
abandoned painting for the more lucrative post of
wine-gauger, which he obtained through the favour
of one of the Burgomaster’s servants. In this con-
nection it is interesting to note that the writer of the
artist’s biography in this volume emphatically rejects
the date 1689 put forward as that in which the
celebrated picture of The Avenue, Middelharms—in
the National Gallery, London—was painted, declar-
ing that it is impossible that such a masterpiece could
have been painted twenty years after the painter had
abandoned his brushes. Van de Velde and Potter
both died young, but accomplished a great deal
during their brief careers.

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