Studio: international art (72.1918)

Reviews

for the enormous appreciation in value. The
great enthusiasm for art created by Count
Date’s sale, which took place about a year ago,
was brought to a still higher pitch by this sale
of Viscount Akimoto’s treasures. Another very
important sale is to take place in the near
future. A collection of art objects in the
possession of Mr. Akaboshi, of Tokyo, is to be
put up for auction, and it is expected that it
will be a very much bigger affair than Viscount
Akimoto’s sale—in fact, according to a reliable
estimate it will realize nearly three times as
much as this. Taking advantage of the oppor-
tunities now offered, many old houses in Japan
are selling out their family treasures. It is the
prevalent opinion in Japan that art enthusiasm
is now at its highest point in this country.

Harada-Jiro.

REVIEWS.

Parables and Tales. By Thomas Gordon
Hake. With a preface by his son, Thomas
Hake. Illustrated by Arthur Hughes.
(London : Elkin Mathews.) 5s. net.—Forty-
five years have passed since this collection of
verse made its appearance with a cover design
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the present
edition appears to be part of that which was
then printed, but a plain cover replaces that
bearing Rossetti’s design and the letterpress
is supplemented by an introductory note from
the author’s son concerning his father’s literary
activities. In this he quotes at length Rossetti’s
review of the verse forming this collection, and
it is of interest not only because it is one of the
only two poetic criticisms he wrote, but also
because it reveals him as a discriminating judge
of poetic utterance. The qualities which Rossetti
admired in these poems—their homeliness, and
especially the warm human sympathy pervading
them—are those which entitle them to be
rescued from oblivion; but apart from the
poems themselves, the belated issue of this
remnant of the original edition is to be welcomed
because it contains the eight drawings made for
it by Arthur Hughes, and we doubt not that
there are many who will share the admiration
which Rossetti felt for them. Hughes, with
whose death, just under two years ago, dis-
appeared the last of the Pre-Raphaelite group,
reached his highest point as a painter in April
Love (Tate Gallery), but he deserves equally to

be remembered for his black-and-white work,
about which comparatively little is known.

Silver : Its History and Romance. By Ben-
jamin White. With an Introduction by Sir
Charles Addis. (London: Hodder and

Stoughton.) 21 s. net.—As is the case with
many things with which we come in contact
every day, most of us have only a dim idea of
the part which silver has played in the history
of mankind. It is the aim of Mr. White’s book
to impart the knowledge we lack and to tell us
something about its manifold uses in the past
and present, and though its employment as a
medium of exchange among people in all stages
of civilization claims his chief attention, scarcely
any aspect of the subject has been neglected in
this comprehensive survey, including the metal-
lurgy and assaying of the metal, and, of course,
its widespread use for articles of luxury and
ornament. If from the point of view of romance
silver cannot compete with gold, its history has
furnished the author with abundance of inci-
dents which serve to enliven his pages and
excite the interest of the general reader, for
whom the book is primarily intended and for
whom also the illustrations have been made as
varied as the letterpress.

Quelqnes Images de la Vie d’un Artiste.
Contees et gravees par Edgard Tijtgat.
(Londres, 1916-1917.)—Affection for a departed
friend and fellow-artist has inspired M. Tijtgat
to the production of what must certainly be
classed as a bibliographical curiosity, for in
these days it is rare to find a book with so
peculiarly autographic a character as this, which
he has composed and printed from type cut by
his own hand and illustrated with a series of
woodcuts in colour similarly produced. The
author is a Belgian artist who, like many of his
countrymen, sought refuge in England when his
native land was invaded, and in these “ Images ”
he renders homage to the memory of Rik
Wouters, who died a few month§ ago in intern-
ment in Holland, whither he escaped after
fighting at Liege and Antwerp. From a typo-
graphical point of view his friend’s memoir,
with its crude type and naive woodcuts, both
reminiscent of book-production in its early
phases, may raise a smile in those accustomed
to the precise methods of modern printing, but
the motive which has prompted this tribute
to an esteemed confrere is so frankly sincere
that technical criticism is disarmed.

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