DOI Heft:
No. 371 (February 1924)
DOI Artikel:[Notes: two hundred and twenty-one illustrations]
DOI Artikel:Reviews
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21399#0136
REVIEWS
THE STUDIO YEAR-BOOK OF
DECORATIVE ART, 1924.
THE nineteenth volume of this series is
now in the press, and will appear in
March. In addition to the usual sections
devoted to Domestic Architecture, in-
cluding interiors, the Editor has again
given considerable space to illustrations of
Furniture, Fireplaces, Textiles and Em-
broidery, Pottery, Porcelain, Glassware,
Electric Light Fittings, Metalwork, Garden
Designs and Garden Furniture. The scope
of the book embraces not only Great
Britain and America, but France and other
Continental countries, the Colonies and
Japan. So much material of a high standard
was received that the Editor was compelled
to exclude rigorously all but the very best,
and this best he commends to the attention
of all interested in applied art. 0 0
REVIEWS
Angling in British Art through five cen-
turies, prints, pictures, books. By Walter
Shaw Sparrow with foreword by H. T.
Sheringham. (John Lane, The Bodley
Head, Ltd.) 50s. net. This excellently pro-
duced volume well fulfils the promise of its
title. The large colour-plates, of which
there are upwards of 40, include reproduc-
tions of pictures by J. S. Sargent, Ernest
Briggs, Norman Wilkinson, S. J. Lamorna
Birch, John Sell Cotman, David Cox,
Thomas Rowlandson, Henry Aiken, John
Zoffany, William Hogarth and others,
whilst over 150 additional illustrations in
black-and-white include the work of many
other equally notable artists. a 0
The excellent reproductions make strong
appeal to the artist, and the variety of treat-
ment of subjects more or less similar in
character is interesting and instructive. 0
The volume is an important contribution
to the literature of sport and reflects credit
on all concerned in its production. 0
Chinese Painting. By Arthur Waley.
(Ernest Benn, Ltd.) 73s. 6d. net. Chinese
painting is a study which, as the author
says, might take not one but several life-
times, but the present work is important
and the illustrations are not only exquisite
in themselves but most revelatory. In an
art which began about or perhaps before
118
the 14th Century B.C. we find that
Whistler was not the first Whistler, nor the
modernist schools the first “ modernists,”
nor the Renaissance the first thing of its
kind. We meet another great workman—
the picture forger. In the days, perhaps, of
Lao Tsu, as in those which have followed
the lamented deaths of David Cox and
Turner, imitation was the sincerest (and a
not unprofitable) form of flattery. Another
20th Century suggestion is that of Ni Tsan
(14th Century A.D.). “ What I call painting
is no more than a careless extravaganza of
the brush, not aiming at resemblance but
only at the diversion of the painter.
Recently on the occasion of one of my
rambles to the capital, people came to me
begging for paintings. I found that they all
wanted them to be like something in par-
ticular, seen at a particular season.” Where
have we heard this before i Where also have
we heard the plaintive sentence which
follows *.—“ Then they went away angry ” i
14th Century China or 20th Century
Chelsea—verily are they not one i and in
the one, as in the other “ The men of the
world think that my pictures are produced
by a mere wave of the brush : they have no
idea that painting is a difficult matter.”
After this it appears that efforts to "educate
the public in art ” may be left until such
period as shall change human nature—an
epoch further removed from us than we
from ancient China. 000
Thomas Gainsborough. By E. Rimbault
Dibdin. (Cassell & Co., Ltd.) 15s.net. One
of the “ Master Painters of the World ”
series, this book is a life of Gainsborough
more than a disquisition on that artist’s
work. It is a very natural story engagingly
told by a critic whose name is not his only
18th Century characteristic. Mr. Dibdin
loves the epoch and the man of whom he
writes, and indeed an age which brings
together, as friends and companions, such
people as Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, the
Lindleys, Johann ChristianBach,Reynolds,
Hoppner, Wilson, Pitt and the other giants
is an excusefor enthusiasm. Gainsborough’s
character is given firmly and lightly—quite
a typical artist's character, in faults and
virtues. There is the yearning for arts other
than his own, the disposition to go wild on
occasion, with typical subsequent repent-
ance, the jars with authority (especially, of
THE STUDIO YEAR-BOOK OF
DECORATIVE ART, 1924.
THE nineteenth volume of this series is
now in the press, and will appear in
March. In addition to the usual sections
devoted to Domestic Architecture, in-
cluding interiors, the Editor has again
given considerable space to illustrations of
Furniture, Fireplaces, Textiles and Em-
broidery, Pottery, Porcelain, Glassware,
Electric Light Fittings, Metalwork, Garden
Designs and Garden Furniture. The scope
of the book embraces not only Great
Britain and America, but France and other
Continental countries, the Colonies and
Japan. So much material of a high standard
was received that the Editor was compelled
to exclude rigorously all but the very best,
and this best he commends to the attention
of all interested in applied art. 0 0
REVIEWS
Angling in British Art through five cen-
turies, prints, pictures, books. By Walter
Shaw Sparrow with foreword by H. T.
Sheringham. (John Lane, The Bodley
Head, Ltd.) 50s. net. This excellently pro-
duced volume well fulfils the promise of its
title. The large colour-plates, of which
there are upwards of 40, include reproduc-
tions of pictures by J. S. Sargent, Ernest
Briggs, Norman Wilkinson, S. J. Lamorna
Birch, John Sell Cotman, David Cox,
Thomas Rowlandson, Henry Aiken, John
Zoffany, William Hogarth and others,
whilst over 150 additional illustrations in
black-and-white include the work of many
other equally notable artists. a 0
The excellent reproductions make strong
appeal to the artist, and the variety of treat-
ment of subjects more or less similar in
character is interesting and instructive. 0
The volume is an important contribution
to the literature of sport and reflects credit
on all concerned in its production. 0
Chinese Painting. By Arthur Waley.
(Ernest Benn, Ltd.) 73s. 6d. net. Chinese
painting is a study which, as the author
says, might take not one but several life-
times, but the present work is important
and the illustrations are not only exquisite
in themselves but most revelatory. In an
art which began about or perhaps before
118
the 14th Century B.C. we find that
Whistler was not the first Whistler, nor the
modernist schools the first “ modernists,”
nor the Renaissance the first thing of its
kind. We meet another great workman—
the picture forger. In the days, perhaps, of
Lao Tsu, as in those which have followed
the lamented deaths of David Cox and
Turner, imitation was the sincerest (and a
not unprofitable) form of flattery. Another
20th Century suggestion is that of Ni Tsan
(14th Century A.D.). “ What I call painting
is no more than a careless extravaganza of
the brush, not aiming at resemblance but
only at the diversion of the painter.
Recently on the occasion of one of my
rambles to the capital, people came to me
begging for paintings. I found that they all
wanted them to be like something in par-
ticular, seen at a particular season.” Where
have we heard this before i Where also have
we heard the plaintive sentence which
follows *.—“ Then they went away angry ” i
14th Century China or 20th Century
Chelsea—verily are they not one i and in
the one, as in the other “ The men of the
world think that my pictures are produced
by a mere wave of the brush : they have no
idea that painting is a difficult matter.”
After this it appears that efforts to "educate
the public in art ” may be left until such
period as shall change human nature—an
epoch further removed from us than we
from ancient China. 000
Thomas Gainsborough. By E. Rimbault
Dibdin. (Cassell & Co., Ltd.) 15s.net. One
of the “ Master Painters of the World ”
series, this book is a life of Gainsborough
more than a disquisition on that artist’s
work. It is a very natural story engagingly
told by a critic whose name is not his only
18th Century characteristic. Mr. Dibdin
loves the epoch and the man of whom he
writes, and indeed an age which brings
together, as friends and companions, such
people as Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, the
Lindleys, Johann ChristianBach,Reynolds,
Hoppner, Wilson, Pitt and the other giants
is an excusefor enthusiasm. Gainsborough’s
character is given firmly and lightly—quite
a typical artist's character, in faults and
virtues. There is the yearning for arts other
than his own, the disposition to go wild on
occasion, with typical subsequent repent-
ance, the jars with authority (especially, of