Studio: international art (60.1914)

Reviews and Notices

ing the qualities peculiar to stained glass very
effectively, the examples depicted being from
churches at Canterbury, York and Fairford in
England, and Chartres, Poitiers, Rouen, and Le
Mans in France.

Paris Nights and other Impressions of Places
and People. By Arnold Bennett. With illustra-
tions by E. A. Rickards, F.R.I.B.A. (London:
Hodder and Stoughton.) 12s. net.—On our way
through this most interesting and entertaining
volume of impressions we find Mr. Bennett, apropos
of his having on one occasion successfully worked
a system at the tables at Monte Carlo, recording,
his state of mind in the following words : “ I was
as happy as though I had shot a reviewer without
being found out.” Naturally it is with a feeling of
profound relief that one finds oneself impelled
quite conscientiously to pen those eulogies of this
clever author’s latest book, which even were the
volume of much less interest, the quaking reviewer
would be terrorised into writing! In these essays
he gives us impressions of Paris, London, Italy,
and other places and people, and his observation
is shrewd but kindly and his criticisms though
often scathing and trenchant are always sympa-
thetic. His chapters on The British Home may
be read with much amusement but they most
decidedly “give to think.” The eminent archi-
tect, whose drawings are reproduced, appears here
in, to us, a new light. Mr. Rickards’ pencil im-
pressions are airy and graceful and his sketches
though mostly very slight and free, are full of
suggestion. They form an admirable accompani-
ment, or what, to borrow a term from another art,
we should like to describe as a delightful obbligato,
to the author’s excellent essays.

French Colour Prints of the XVIIIth Century.
Introductory Essay by M. C. Salaman. (London :
William Heinemann.) jf 2 2s. net.—Unlike the
line engraving which had such an extensive vogue
in France before the Revolution and through the
facilities offered by modern processes of reproduc-
tion is now tolerably well known outside the land
of its origin, the French colour-print of the same
period and equal if not greater popularity during
that peculiar phase of French history has until now
remained practically unknown, except to a restricted
circle of connoisseurs and collectors, outside France.
Both species of print are, however, eagerly sought
after by collectors, and at Christie’s in London as
well as at the Hotel Drouot in Paris the com-
petition for good impressions waxes very keen.
Peculiar interest therefore attaches to this sump-
tuous volume in which Mr, Salaman has brought
246

together a typical series of fifty examples of these
old colour-prints, the reproduction and presentation
of which merit the highest praise. Those who
have studied this phase of French art know, of
course, that many of the prints which saw the light
in the years preceding the great social upheaval
were of such a character as to negative their publi-
cation in a work of this kind, and there may,
indeed, be critics who will demur to the inclusion
of two or three which appear towards the end of
this series, such as Bonnet’s La Toilette and Le
Bain after Jollain, Regnault’s Le Bain after
Baudouin, and Le Lever by and after the same
engraver, but “ naughtily daring ” as many of these
pre-Revolution artists often were, to quote an apt
phrase from Mr. Salaman’s introduction, there is
always a certain refinement in their revelations of the
vie intime which enables us to condone much of their
audacity, and so instead of being repelled we, with
our stricter code of taste, are merely amused. In
his entertaining and illuminating essay Mr. Salaman
sketches the history of the French colour-print of
the eighteenth century from the mezzotint process
invented by the unfortunate Le Blon, who is
represented by two examples, to the later stages
when the aquatint process became general. This
essay is, indeed, with its store of technical and
historical information, a valuable part of what is in all
respects a volume of great and permanent interest.

Fifty Caricatures. By Max Beerbohm. (Lon-
don : William Heinemann.) 6s. net. — The

majority of these caricatures have appeared, if we
mistake not, at the recent exhibition of this artist’s
work, but even though the volume may not contain
anything that is absolutely new all the admirers of
Mr. Beerbohm’s amazingly witty drawings must
feel grateful to the publisher for thus collecting so
many in this amusing volume. There are many
caricaturists of various kinds, but there is no one
who adds to the gifts of literary satire and keen
and penetrating observation such a power of
entirely satisfying artistic expression. However,
Mr. Beerbohm stands in no need of eulogy for
either his admirable draughtsmanship or for the
brilliance of his equally clever titles to the carica-
tures. To pick out any particular drawings for
mention is difficult as all are so excellent, but in
the one of Mr. Masefield we have a caricature of
the poet and of a certain phase of his art most
neatly expressed in a parody of three lines of
Wordsworth, and in Mr. foseph Pennell thinking of
the olcfun, and the delightful Balfour frieze or Mr.
Roger Fry in a super-post-impressionistic vein Mr.
Beerhohm’s rapier thrusts are swift and unerring.