Studio: international art (56.1912)

Reviews and Notices

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Memories of fames McNeill Whistler. By
Thomas R. Way. (London: John Lane.) i os.
net.—After many memoirs on “ The Butterfly,”
treating of Whistler’s complex personality, Mr.
Way’s picture of the workman and of his noble
simplicity is refreshing. Mr. Way came in touch
with Whistler over the art of lithography. The
history of the preparation of the artist’s early
lithographs, and of his connection with the magazine
“ Piccadilly,” edited by Mr. Theodore Watts in
1878, is most interesting. The descriptive picture
of Whistler in the act of painting is valuable—one
to be preserved for posterity. Whistler’s methods
with various mediums have been often described,
but never so authoritatively as here. We are glad
to see the tribute to the great patron, Leyland,
from a writer behind the scenes of the quarrel with
the painter. It is pleasant to have the author’s
recollection of the delivery of the great “Ten
o’clock ” Lecture, and of the effort that was spent
upon this production. All Whistler’s real appre-
ciators join the author in deeply deploring “the
physical wear and tear and time that Whistler
devoted to Press correspondence, and fights with
people of no importance whatever.” Whistler’s
personality emerges in a very attractive light from
the matter-of-fact and unassumingly written narra-
tive of the author’s lithographic association with
him. The book is profusely illustrated by studies
which show that the most sympathetic qualities of
Whistler’s finished work were present the moment
his pencil touched paper, giving a peculiar effective-
ness to the slightest things.

English Ironwork of the XVIIth and XVIIIth
Centuries. By J. Starkie-Gardner. (London:
B. T. Batsford.) 425. net.—In undertaking this
history of English ironwork—the present volume
being, as we gather from the introduction, a first
instalment only, treating of the objects most liable
to deterioration or destruction through exposure—•
Mr. Starkie-Gardner has earned the gratitude of all
students of English arts and crafts, for the subject
is one that has been very scantily treated hitherto.
The period covered by this volume was one which
witnessed a remarkable and indeed unexampled
revival of decorative smithing, following upon two
centuries during which the craft had dwindled into
insignificance; and here, as in other branches of
applied art, it seems that the credit for the de-
velopment that took place must be given in chief
measure to an alien, Jean Tijou, of whose ante-
cedents not much is known, but who is thought to

have been a French Protestant refugee living in
Holland under the protection of William and Mary
of Orange, whose enlightened patronage he enjoyed
for many years after they became rulers of England.
Among the native craftsmen, however, decorative
smithing was not dead, but only dormant, and the
advent of Tijou and his royal patrons sufficed to re-
kindle the languishing embers. “ All his successors
bore English names, and almost from the outset
he found English rivals superior in some Ways
even to himself as designers.” That this last
statement is not without truth will be seen on
examining the splendid specimens of ornamental
work reproduced in the volume, and it is interesting
to note that these native craftsmen were for the
most part also the designers. How it came about
that the great smiths who succeeded Tijou left no
equally important successors is explained by Mr.
Gardner in a section dealing with “ The Influence
of the Architect.” “ The tendency of the architect
to monopolise all the designing, not only of the
structure, but of its decoration and contents, in-
creased progressively, culminating in the brothers
Adam, who would not permit so much as a picture
or piece of furniture to be posed without their
advice and consent. By them the maitres ornamen-
tistes, or professional designers and craftsmen, the
very originators of all applied design, were finally
suppressed and squeezed out of existence, the
result being within a few decades the utter collapse
of all art in the country in the Early Victorian
days.” More than half the present volume is
concerned with the evolution of gates, and except
where the work of Tijou and his successors is dealt
with the subject is treated topographically, the
large number of excellent collotype and other re-
productions, mostly from photographs by Mr.
Horace Dan, giving distinction to the volume.
The treatment of the gate is followed by an in-
teresting section on railings, balustrades, balconies,
stair-ramps, and grilles, and another on lampholders,
brackets, signs, and vanes, both being well illus-
trated. Various indexes add to the utility of the
book as a work of reference.

Individuality and Art. By Herbert E. A.
Furst. (Macmillan : London.) 3s. 6d. net.—The
thesis of this essay is summed up in its final words :
“ The Fighting Temtraire is no more truly a product
of individuality than the bower-bird’s bower; it
happened as inevitably as the Fall of Rome, and is
as much to Turner’s credit as the rotation of the
earth upon its axis.” Mr. Furst enumerates Candle
Taxes, Martyr Kings, Gold-dust and Slave-traffic,
Merry Monarchs, Philosophers, Norman Raiders,

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