DOI Heft:
No. 286 (January 1917)
DOI Artikel:Reviews and notices
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24575#0223
Reviews mid Notices
REVIEWS AND NOTICES.
Assyrian Sculptures—The Palace of Sinaeherib.
By Archibald Paterson, B.D. (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff.)—The chief function of the
sculptor in ancient Assyria seems to have been
that of illustrating the tablets in which the vain-
glorious monarchs of that great military power of
antiquity bragged about their conquests and the
Frightfulness which they meted out to the tribes
and nations they subjugated. In the inscriptions
which Sinaeherib and his grandson Assur-bani-pal
left for posterity to decipher, these despots boasted
of the fiendish cruelties they perpetrated on their
captives, and it was these same monarchs who
adorned the great palace—" the Palace that hath
no equal "—built by the former at one end of the
mound of Kuyunjik with the bas-reliefs shown in
this portfolio of reproductions. The subjects of
these reliefs are almost invariably the military
exploits of these War Lords and their warriors on
land and on water; sometimes they are shown
assaulting a stronghold of the enemy, but more
frequently the reliefs celebrate the victory they
have achieved, and the return of the army with
strings of captives and the heads of the slain. It
is evident that the sculptor of those days was
allowed but little latitude and had to follow a
rigorous convention ; the only attempt he seems to
have made to depart from the prescribed mode of
representation was when he occasionally varied the
facial expression, but these were very rare occasions,
and in looking at the whole series of reliefs one
sees an almost endless repetition of the same types.
The letterpress accompanying these excellent
reproductions is confined to a tabulated analysis
of them based largely on the information recorded
by Layard, who still remains the chief authority
on the relics of the great Mesopotamian Empire
that collapsed with startling suddenness six
centuries before the Christian era.
Color and its Applications. By M. LuCKlESH.
(Constable and Co. Ltd.) \ts. net.—The aim of
the American physicist whose name appears on
the title-page of this book has been to present a
condensed treatment of the science of colour, and
in the successive chapters he has endeavoured to
present as many phases of the subject as possible
in a volume of its size. Plence a large part of the
treatise is not directly relevant to the application
of colour by those who practise art in various ways,
but both the painter of pictures and the decorator
will find the author's observations well worth
studying, especially those made in the chapters on
" The Effect of Environment on Color " ; " Color
Effects for the Stage and Displays " ; and " Color
Phenomena in Painting."
Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book: Fairy Tales of
the Allied Nations. (London : Hodder and
Stoughton.) 6s. net.—The fairytales in this
collection are all different from those illustrated
by Mr. Rackham in "The Allies Fairy-Book"
edited by Mr. Edmund Gosse, which we noticed
last month. In Mr. Duke's selection Russia has
pride of place and number, with three stories—
" Snegorotchka " (the Snow Child), "Ivan and the
Chestnut Horse " and " The Fire Bird " which
are great favourites in the Little Father's realms,
and the "The Blue Bird" which with "The Green
Serpent" stands for France is popular on both
sides of the Channel. In Mr. Dulac's list, besides
England and Ireland all the other allied countries
are represented except Roumania. Each one of
the stories he has illustrated with a fascinating
picture in which his wonderful imagination and
rare sense of colour have had full play. The large-
sized type is a commendable feature of this volume.
Typographical Printing-Surfaces : The Technology
and Mecha?iism of their Production. By Lucien
Alphonse Legros, M.I.C.E., etc., and John
Cameron Grant. (London : Longmans, Green
and Co.) £2 2s. net.—Though the title of this
work proclaims that it is not a book for the
"general reader," yet indirectly its subject-matter
concerns every reader in whatever part of the world
he may live, for while dealing mainly with the typo-
graphical requirements of the press in European
countries and their offshoots over the seas, it com-
prehends within its survey the typography of a vast
number of non-European races, from Chinese
to Cherokee. The chapter which has the most
interest for the "general reader" is that which
discusses the question of legibility in the light of
the researches conducted by scientific investigators
and the authors themselves, the result of which is
to demonstrate the superiority of "old-style" roman
and especially the kind known as "blackfriars," as
compared with modern roman type ; and in the
same connection they discuss the question of the
size of type suitable for children of different ages,
examples of which are given. This question of
legibility is one of vital and universal importance,
and it is to be hoped that publishers of books and
periodicals will take note of the conclusions arrived
at by the authors after very elaborate investigations-
This work, which includes two lists of patents
occupying nearly 90 pages, a technical vocabulary
in three languages, and an exhaustive index, must
have involved an immense amount of labour.
211
REVIEWS AND NOTICES.
Assyrian Sculptures—The Palace of Sinaeherib.
By Archibald Paterson, B.D. (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff.)—The chief function of the
sculptor in ancient Assyria seems to have been
that of illustrating the tablets in which the vain-
glorious monarchs of that great military power of
antiquity bragged about their conquests and the
Frightfulness which they meted out to the tribes
and nations they subjugated. In the inscriptions
which Sinaeherib and his grandson Assur-bani-pal
left for posterity to decipher, these despots boasted
of the fiendish cruelties they perpetrated on their
captives, and it was these same monarchs who
adorned the great palace—" the Palace that hath
no equal "—built by the former at one end of the
mound of Kuyunjik with the bas-reliefs shown in
this portfolio of reproductions. The subjects of
these reliefs are almost invariably the military
exploits of these War Lords and their warriors on
land and on water; sometimes they are shown
assaulting a stronghold of the enemy, but more
frequently the reliefs celebrate the victory they
have achieved, and the return of the army with
strings of captives and the heads of the slain. It
is evident that the sculptor of those days was
allowed but little latitude and had to follow a
rigorous convention ; the only attempt he seems to
have made to depart from the prescribed mode of
representation was when he occasionally varied the
facial expression, but these were very rare occasions,
and in looking at the whole series of reliefs one
sees an almost endless repetition of the same types.
The letterpress accompanying these excellent
reproductions is confined to a tabulated analysis
of them based largely on the information recorded
by Layard, who still remains the chief authority
on the relics of the great Mesopotamian Empire
that collapsed with startling suddenness six
centuries before the Christian era.
Color and its Applications. By M. LuCKlESH.
(Constable and Co. Ltd.) \ts. net.—The aim of
the American physicist whose name appears on
the title-page of this book has been to present a
condensed treatment of the science of colour, and
in the successive chapters he has endeavoured to
present as many phases of the subject as possible
in a volume of its size. Plence a large part of the
treatise is not directly relevant to the application
of colour by those who practise art in various ways,
but both the painter of pictures and the decorator
will find the author's observations well worth
studying, especially those made in the chapters on
" The Effect of Environment on Color " ; " Color
Effects for the Stage and Displays " ; and " Color
Phenomena in Painting."
Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book: Fairy Tales of
the Allied Nations. (London : Hodder and
Stoughton.) 6s. net.—The fairytales in this
collection are all different from those illustrated
by Mr. Rackham in "The Allies Fairy-Book"
edited by Mr. Edmund Gosse, which we noticed
last month. In Mr. Duke's selection Russia has
pride of place and number, with three stories—
" Snegorotchka " (the Snow Child), "Ivan and the
Chestnut Horse " and " The Fire Bird " which
are great favourites in the Little Father's realms,
and the "The Blue Bird" which with "The Green
Serpent" stands for France is popular on both
sides of the Channel. In Mr. Dulac's list, besides
England and Ireland all the other allied countries
are represented except Roumania. Each one of
the stories he has illustrated with a fascinating
picture in which his wonderful imagination and
rare sense of colour have had full play. The large-
sized type is a commendable feature of this volume.
Typographical Printing-Surfaces : The Technology
and Mecha?iism of their Production. By Lucien
Alphonse Legros, M.I.C.E., etc., and John
Cameron Grant. (London : Longmans, Green
and Co.) £2 2s. net.—Though the title of this
work proclaims that it is not a book for the
"general reader," yet indirectly its subject-matter
concerns every reader in whatever part of the world
he may live, for while dealing mainly with the typo-
graphical requirements of the press in European
countries and their offshoots over the seas, it com-
prehends within its survey the typography of a vast
number of non-European races, from Chinese
to Cherokee. The chapter which has the most
interest for the "general reader" is that which
discusses the question of legibility in the light of
the researches conducted by scientific investigators
and the authors themselves, the result of which is
to demonstrate the superiority of "old-style" roman
and especially the kind known as "blackfriars," as
compared with modern roman type ; and in the
same connection they discuss the question of the
size of type suitable for children of different ages,
examples of which are given. This question of
legibility is one of vital and universal importance,
and it is to be hoped that publishers of books and
periodicals will take note of the conclusions arrived
at by the authors after very elaborate investigations-
This work, which includes two lists of patents
occupying nearly 90 pages, a technical vocabulary
in three languages, and an exhaustive index, must
have involved an immense amount of labour.
211