Studio: international art (83.1922)

REVIEWS

SKETCH FOR FOUNTAIN
BY LILLIAN LINK

(Pennsylvania Academy)

REVIEWS.

A Pastorale. By Charles Simpson.
Illustrated with twelve wood cuts. (St.
Ives, Cornwall : C. Simpson.) When one
writes a book, and illustrates it too, one is
giving hostages to Fortune—or to the
Critics rather—with both hands ! and yet
what is more natural than that an artist who
has likewise a capacity for literary ex-
pression, or a writer with something of the
artist's technical skill should desire to bring
these two arts into collaboration so that one
should, as it were, illuminate the other.
Mr. Charles Simpson has courageously
attacked this double problem. He is a
lover of birds and one is familiar with his
large scenes of wheeling gulls in salt
marshes and sea shores. He has thrown
down his brush for the moment and taken
a pen and told gracefully and imaginatively
of a derelict cottage in the wilds and of the
ghostly sensations that cling as it were to
the relics of past life; then he takes a
burin and chips away at his block, carving
these fancies into the solid material. This
is a lengthy and arduous method of
suggesting delicate creations of the mind,
but some of the prints are decorative and
virile and stand on their own bases, even if
they do not all throw any vivid light on the
letterpress. Here it is one sees the
divergence often noticed in illustrated
books, even when both presentations come
from the same mind. 000

The Philosophy of Fine Art. By G. W. F.
Hegel. Translated with Notes, by F. P. B.

Osmaston, B.A. (London : G. Bell and
Sons.) 4 vols., 25s. net. Those who have a
first hand acquaintance with German philo-
sophical writings, and those of Hegel in
particular, will appreciate the difficulty of
the task undertaken by Mr. Osmaston in
rendering into English that philosopher's
" Philosophic des Kunstschonen." As the
result of his painstaking and conscientious
labour we have in these four volumes, mak-
ing in all some 2,000 pages of closely
printed type, the first complete translation
of a work which in its entirety has hitherto
been a sealed book to all but a few students
possessing something more than a super-
ficial knowledge of German. 0 0

More about Collecting. By Sir James
Yoxall. (London : Stanley Paul & Co.)
15s. net.—To judge from the great variety
of objects discussed and illustrated in this
volume, a sequel to his '‘ABC of
Collecting," the author appears to have
a truly omnivorous appetite for old things,
and those who are of like mind will find
much to interest them in what he has here
to say about furniture, pictures, minia-
tures, earthenware and porcelain, glass-
ware, books, prints, autographs and many
other things, as well as some useful hints
as to buying. Unfortunately, however,
he seems to be one of those whose love
for the old ■ blinds them to appreciation
of the new, for in speaking of water-colours
he says : “ I do not wonder if there is
little demand for modern water-colours,
for I have seldom seen one that I would
care to buy to hang against my study wall.
But the old English water-colours ! I
think they are the most delightful things
ever done in pictorial art." Happily for
the artist of to-day there are, even now
when the collector of works of art has to
reckon with the collector of taxes, not a
few picture buyers who can derive pleasure
from modern work while admiring no less
than Sir James Yoxall the productions of
the old masters, 0000
The Art of Blamire Young. Special
Number of " Art in Australia." (Sydney :
Angus & Robertson ; London : Constable
and Co.), £2 2S. net. This small quarto,
with its 36 reproductions in colour of oil
paintings and water colours by Mr.
Blamire Young, is a purely Australian pro-
duction, and by the quality of the printing

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