Studio: international art (89.1925)

REVIEWS

REVIEWS.

Angelica Kauffmann, R.A. Her Life
and Works. By Lady Victoria Manners
and Dr. G. C. Williamson. 79 illus.
63s. net, limited to 1,000 copies. Special
edition of 75 copies 126s. net. (John
Lane.) This is a really valuable book,
embodying in a very pleasant and inter-
esting form an immense amount of
authentic information about an artist
who has suffered too much of late—as
she did in her own time—from being too
charming. Admitting that her historical
compositions were her least satisfactory
work, the authors bring to notice a great
number of her portraits which fully justify
the pains they have taken to restore her
to a fair place among her great con-
temporaries. They show that her admis-
sion to the Royal Academy had more than
a fascinating personality and a sweetening
influence to recommend it and that no
one who professes to be acquainted with
the artists of her time can afford to leave
her out of the circle. 000

Wooden Monumental Effigies in England
and Wales. By Alfred C. Fryer, Ph.D.,
F.S.A. New revised and enlarged edition.
21s. net. (Elliot Stock.) Alas ! There are
only about a score of them left—they
were useful for fuel. But of these, especially
those of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies, there are one or two that are among
the most beautiful things we have. More-
over, they are most of them our " family
portraits," if we care to ask the genealogist.
By all means another edition. 0 0

British Mezzotints. By Sir Frank
Short, R.A. With seventeen illustrations
in collotype. 6s, (Print Collectors' Club.)
This is the Club's " Publication No. 4,"
being a lecture delivered to it in November
last. Besides the beautiful collotype re-
productions of fine examples, there are
numerous cuts which are really " illustra-
tions " of the mysteries of this black art.
Like its predecessors this little volume
seems to hold all of its subject that really
matters. Of course they don't, but that is
the impression they make. 000

Conferencias de Arte. By A. de Beruete
y Moret. (Madrid.) These lectures have
much of the value of a complete history.
Spanish painting has a mystical, brood-
ing quality which divides into two main

directions—the profound study of man
and the expression of religion — por-
traiture and ecstatic composition. Look,
for example, at the tragic intensity of
Mazo's Lady with the Mantilla, or Car-
reno's Founding of the Order of the Holy
Trinity. "Without Titian and consequently
Tintoretto," says Senor Beruete, " there
would have been no El Greco "—and so no
Velasquez and no Goya. Perhaps this is a
little far fetched and overrates the Italian
influence on the Greek who was in his
painting the most typical of Spaniards.
Senor Beruete, however, sets a very
pertinent problem in inquiring why El
Greco appeals to our modern painters.
Why, indeed { He has no apparent bond
with the Impressionists or the Post-
Impressionists. The bond is probably
intellectual. Of Velasquez; all is said. Round
Goya, too, there is already a literature, but
Senor Beruete contrives to catch a new
angle, and throws out the interesting
suggestion of a dual Goya—one of the
eighteenth and one of the nineteenth
centuries—a Goya who gained continually
in the force and " monumental " expres-
sion of power. W. G.

We regret that in our February number
the name of the German sculptor, Bernhard
Hoetger, was incorrectly spelt " Haetger."

" THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT HAL-
DANE OF CLOAN." BY KAPP
(In the collection of Vernon
Roberts, Esq. One of a series of
coloured reproductions published
by " The Law Journal ")

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