Studio: international art (58.1913)

Reviews and Notices

Portugal, Holland, Switzerland, France, and Russia,
is also represented. The objects described and repro-
duced are of many different kinds—cups, tankards,
and other species of drinking vessels, including
some very choice specimens of sacramental vessels,
statuettes, horns, dishes, plaques, vases, clocks,
and so forth, but it is characteristic of their country
of origin that the bulk of the examples are drinking
vessels. The illustrations consist of rather more
than a hundred large plates by the collotype-
process, and the work as a whole has been pro-
duced in a manner worthy of its contents.

Mornings with Masters of Art. By H. H.
Powers, Ph.D. (New York : The Macmillan Co.)
8s. 6d. net.—Endowed with the rare power of
differentiating between the essential and the non-
essential in the personality of an artist and in the
work which is the outcome of that personality, Dr.
Powers in his essays in this volume has in almost
every case gone straight to the very root of the
matter. His aim, he explains, has been to interpret
the development of Christian art from the time of
Constantine to the death of Michelangelo, and
his reason for thus limiting the scope of his
inquiry is that during that period religion was the
dominating factor in the choice of subject and
the mode of its treatment. Very significant of the
writer's appreciation of the spirit that animated the
creations of the leaders in the assthetic evolution
he is considering is his chapter on the "Larger
Vision" of the followers of Giotto, for some of
whom he claims that they anticipated to a certain
extent the distinction of style and force of ex-
pression of the masters of the golden age of
painting. Noteworthy, too, are his analyses of the
distinctive qualities of Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi,
Leonardo da Vinci, and Lorenzo Ghiberti, but it is
perhaps in his account of the relations between the
kindred spirits, Pope Julius Hand Michelangelo, and
his review of the sculpture and paintings of the latter
in the Sistine Chapel, that the American critic best
displays his insight into underlying motives. His
explanation, for instance, of the giving of the place
of honour amongst the prophets to Jonah is
singularly original and convincing, suggesting as it
does a very reasonable solution of a problem that
has long puzzled the most discerning.

Motifs Anciens de Decoration Roumaine. Collec-
tion de Marguerite Miller-Verghy. (Bucharest:
Carol Gobi).—In this volume Mile. Miller-Verghy
has brought together some two hundred examples
of decorative motifs found in various parts of
Roumania, on or in buildings such as churches
and monasteries, on articles of household use, in
172

illuminated MSS., and on eggs, for the custom
of painting eggs, which is still kept up in
other countries, especially Russia and the Slav
provinces of Austria and Hungary, seems also to
have been a Roumanian custom. All these motifs
are reproduced exceedingly well in colour, and we
gather that not one of them has appeared before
in any of the various "collections" or albums which
have hitherto Deen published. All these collections
are reviewed by the author in her introductory letter-
press, in which she analyses the contents of each one
as well as her own (comprising in all considerably
more than 2000 motifs) in regard to their character
and the colour applied to them. Straight-line geo-
metrical designs predominate throughout, the cross
being the most frequent form among these, while
curved lines are comparatively scarce. As regards
colour, the use of gold in large or small proportions
is a very prominent characteristic — among the
two hundred examples in the book before us we
observe only one without any gold. Of the tints
themselves red and black in combination are
frequent, but on the whole the more sombre or
neutral tints seem to be preferred, mauves, purples,
and other blue-red compounds being much in
evidence. In discussing the affinities of the
decorative art of Roumania, the author notes that
it is wholly distinct from the peasant art of the
surrounding countries, and curiously enough it is
the .peasant art of Sweden that appears to approxi-
mate most closely to it. The origin of this kinship
between the decorative art of two countries so
remote from one another is a question that remains
to be solved, though it is suggested that it may
have originated in intercourse with Byzantium.

A History of Sheffield Plate. By Frederick
Bradbury. (London : Macmillan and Co.) £2 2s.
net.—Mr. Bradbury in this work has given to the
world the result of twenty-three years' labour, and
it must be admitted that he has accumulated a vast
amount of information from which may be gleaned
some new and interesting items regarding the
history and manufacture of " Old Sheffield." It is
only within the last quarter of a century that any
attention has been paid to the art of the copper-
plate smith, nor until much more recently has any
writing appeared upon the subject. In his en-
thusiasm for his subject Mr. Bradbury resembles
many patrons of the minor arts : his cry is that of
the collector in the wilderness, seeking to raise
" Sheffield plate " to a place of higher honour and
distinction than silver, forgetting that after all it is
only a copy, the making of which actually debased
the silversmith's art. A striking instance of this