Studio: international art (60.1914)

Reviews and Notices

monuments, on plate, jewellery, and ornaments of
all kinds, the attempt to introduce armorial acces-
sories, even by some of our best artists, is almost
always a failure,” and as a significant instance he
points to the Queen Victoria memorial opposite
Buckingham Palace, where in addition to a de-
fective representation of the arms of Scotland there
are shields with devices charged on bends sinister !
He attributes the prevailing ignorance to the
disregard of the principles and usages of true
armory that pervades so much of the printed
literature on the subject, and recognising that as
the best source of information we must go back to
the period when armory was a living art, “ utilised
for artistic purposes by every class of worker and
unencumbered by the ridiculous conceits of Tudor
and later times,” he has founded his exposition in
the main on the various documents of pre-Tudor
times. The many beautiful seals which have
descended from those times are largely made use
of as displaying the artistic treatment of heraldry,
while tombs, windows, brasses and other memorials
also furnish numerous examples. The text illus-
trations and plates number together more than
two hundred, and at the end there is a chrono-
logical series from the thirteenth to the eighteenth
century.

Elements de Composition Decorative. Cent themes
de decoration plane. Par Gaston Quf.nioux,
Inspecteur-General de l’Enseignement du dessin.
(Paris: Librairie Hachette.) 40 francs. — M.

Quenioux, whose official experience gives great
weight to his opinion, is among those who entertain
serious doubts about the utility of books which
profess to teach design. “ However ingenious a
method may be,” he remarks, “ it cannot success-
fully govern taste nor train it, while it may easily
succeed in lowering it. Art is not taught by means
of precept, rules and formulas.” Realising, there-
fore, that example is of more value to the student
than precept, he has gathered together in this
volume an unusually large collection of designs of
diverse kinds and provenance and grouped them
into one hundred chapters or “ themes,” in which
he directs the student’s attention to the particular
significance of the designs. Ancient as well
as modern art contributes to the assemblage,
modern work being plentifully represented, while
Oriental art has also furnished a considerable quota ;
and practically every form of surface decoration is
exemplified. Among the illustrations, moreover,
—the whole numbering close on six hundred—
are some two dozen plates in colour, which
add greatly to the utility of the volume. The

printing of these, as indeed of the book generally,
is excellent.

The official catalogue of the British Section of
Arts and Crafts at the Ghent International Exhibi-
tion contains a foreword by Commendatore Walter
Crane in which he traces the growth of British arts
and crafts as a whole and describes the scheme and
scope of the display at Ghent. Mr. Anning Bell
writes on British sculpture and mural decoration,
and there are papers on various other subjects by
Mr. Emery Walker, Mr. Douglas Cockerell, Miss
May Morris, Mr. Christopher Whall, Mr. Alfred
H. Powell, Mr. R. LI. B. Rathbone, Mr. J. H.
Dearie, Mr. W. A. S. Benson and Mr. A. S. Cole.
The whole of the catalogue is in English and French.

We have also received a copy of the Illustrated
Catalogue of the Exhibition of Chinese Applied
Art recently held in the City of Manchester Art
Gallery. The exhibition comprised an exceedingly
interesting collection of bronzes, pottery, porcelain,
jades, embroideries and textile fabrics, enamels,
lacquers, etc., and many of the objects are repro-
duced in the plates forming part of this tastefully
printed catalogue. Mr. William Burton contributes
a preface, in which he pays a tribute to the sense of
beauty and artistic purpose by which the work of
the Chinese craftsmen is distinguished.

An account in English of the Frans Hals
Municipal Picture Gallery at Haarlem written by
the Director G. D. Gratama and illustrated with
reproductions of the gallery and the pictures ex-
hibited therein is published by De Erven F. Bohn
of Haarlem, price 2fl. 90.

Mr. J. Lacoste, official photographer to the
Prado Museum, Madrid, has issued a French
edition of Madrazo’s Catalogue of pictures in the
Museum, with the text and -numeration revised
and one hundred reproductions hors texte besides
one hundred and fourteen facsimile signatures of
the painters represented. The price in cloth
binding is 12 francs.

“The Haunts of George Borrow in and around
Norwich ” are the subject of four etchings by Miss
C. M. Nichols, member of the Royal Society of
Painter-Etchers, who resides in the Norfolk city
and has recorded many of its interesting features in
her etchings. These four Borrow etchings, which
are published in a portfolio by Messrs. Jarrold and
Sons, of London and Norwich, comprise Borrow's
House from Cow Hill (represented as it was in his
own day); Borrow's Court and House; View oj
City from Sorrow's Window; and Staircase and
Interior of Borrow's House. The plates with their
mounts measure 19 inches by 13.

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