The Number VI author stopped here we should have had no fault Burlington to find with him, but he has endeavoured to draw Magazine, up a list of Gossart's paintings, a task for which he is evidently little fitted. Not only has he omitted several important works, such as the early picture in the Prado gallery, but he has included others which bear no resemblance to those painted by Gossart, or which never pretended to be other than copies, being honestly signed by the copyist Malbodius inventor'; he has enumerated pictures as being now in private collections which were dispersed more than fifty years ago, and has described the same picture twice over (pp. 66 and 68) under different titles, having apparently copied out or translated any notices he has come across, and this with very little care, as his pages not only swarm with errors of spelling but also of fact, such as the monstrous absurdity that Gossart (p. 63) painted the portrait of 'Van den Rust, Carmélite, qui recueillit Memlinc à la bataille de Nancy.' W. H. J. W. OLD ENGLISH MASTERS. Engraved by Timothy Cole. Macmillan. This book contains some of Mr. Timothy Cole's most accomplished work. The preface certainly does not exaggerate his merits when it says that no other engraver of the day could transpose into the medium of wood engraving so much of the spirit and even of the actual quality of the original pictures. Whether, as is also claimed, his engravings are of more value as records and reminiscences of the paintings than good photogravures we doubt. For any purposes of study photographic processes with all their drawbacks are essential. But there is much to be said for interpretative engraving when it reaches so high a point of excellence as Mr. Cole's. For when we look at a photograph or a photogravure, however good, we enjoy, not the thing before our eyes, but the vision of the original, which, even if we have never seen it, we imaginatively construct. Our enjoyment is at one remove from our actual sensations, but when we look at one of Mr. Cole's finer pieces we get an immediate pleasure from the discriminating and appreciative tact of the translator, from the rare mastery of a difficult medium which he shows, and this pleasure is superadded to a very vivid sense of the beauty of the original. Moreover, in certain instances, his power of suggesting luminous and transparent depth of colour or of hinting at subtle gradations of tone goes almost beyond the reach of photographic reproduction. It is not a little surprising that in a medium so precise as wood engraving Mr. Cole's most distinctive excellence lies not in his rendering of design of definite form so much as in his power of giving atmospheric suffusion and infinitely subtle gradations of tone and of suggesting colour. There are, indeed, not a few cases where the form is too much lost, where the searched-out design of the original disappears in a vague penumbra; many cases, too, where the contour is unduly wavering and shapeless: on the other hand, where the chiaroscuro is most subtle, where the gradations would seem to defy any analysis into lines and dots, Mr. Cole surpasses himself. The face of Gainsborough's Mrs. Graham is quite marvellous in this respect, while for atmospheric quality it would be impossible to surpass the Wilsons. With Reynolds he is less successful. Romney's Parson's Daughter is another excellent engraving; and here again it is the evasive liquid brush stroke which he understands so perfectly. Raeburn's Lord Newton, in which similar qualities predominate, is again admirably rendered. We doubt whether this method of reproducing works of art will be continued in the future, nor do we particularly desire it. The finest qualities of wood engraving as an independent art are really contradictory to such methods as are necessary for the faithful transcription of oil painting, but the American school of wood engraving will nevertheless be remembered for the perfect attainment of its best aims in Mr. Cole's work. R. E. F. PERIODICALS. GAZETTE DES BEAUX ARTS, July.-La Sculpture belge et les influences françaises. By M. Raymond Kachlin.-The author endeavours to show that the realistic tendencies hitherto supposed to be indigenous in Flemish art from its commencement did not in reality declare themselves till the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. In the twelfth century German influence predominated at all events in Mosan art, but was succeeded in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the decisive influence of French figure sculpture. Belgian art was at this period informed by the same idealistic and generalizing tendencies as the French school from which it derived. M. Koechlin makes his point good by a number of interesting examples, but in his anxiety to proclaim French influence he minimizes the distinctions between the two schools, the shorter proportions, the blunter and more angular modelling of the Belgian sculptors. If the effigy of Blanche of Castile which came from Tournai to St. Denys is really-as M. Pit supposes a work of the thirteenth century, it shows that already the Flemings were beginning that angular and cutting treatment of the folds of drapery which is associated with the realistic art of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and which the French did not accept till a much later date. Quelques réflexions sur les Salons. (Second, concluding article.) By M. Henry Cochin. This is as brilliantly and fascinatingly written as the first article, and is, like it, pleasantly discursive. M. Cochin discusses with stimulating suggestiveness the theory that every work of art is a symbol, a sign in a universal language, a token corresponding with spiritual and mental values. He proceeds to elaborate the very tenable thesis that all portraiture is caricature, and justly praises in this connection M. Weber's satiric comedies. His remarks on the 'modern style,' as the French call it, or 'l'art nouveau' as we, with a laudable desire to assign to the disease a foreign origin, term it, deserve to be quoted: 'Le temps est venu, je pense, de prononcer le De profundis et les dernières prières sur le soi-disant modern style, être abortif et adultérin, qui porte un nom Anglais, mais est né vraiment en Allemagne, qui n'est pas moderne puisqu'il paraît déjà suranné et court la province-qui de plus n'est pas un style, comme il serait aisé de le démontrer.' Un Manuscrit de Philippe le Bon. (Second Article.) By M. S. Reinach. The author continues his description of these remarkable miniatures and gives still further proof, drawn from the types and gestures of the horses, for supposing that its author is none other than Simon Marmion, of whose picture at Wied he gives three illustrations. It is certain that the likenesses to the early Dutch school, particularly to Dirk Bouts, are common both to Simon Marmion and the miniaturist. While he is discussing Simon Marmion, we hope M. Reinach will take account of the picture of St. Michael attributed to the Flemish school at Hertford House (No. 528), which bears, we think, the impress of his style. The idea had already occurred independently to Mr. Claude Phillips. We hope that M. Reinach will be able to secure rather better reproductions of the succeeding miniatures in his forthcoming article. Le Salon de 1761. (Second article.) By M. Casimir Stryienski.—By the aid of the minute and brilliant sketches with which Gabriel de Saint-Aubin annotated his catalogues, the author In continues to trace the history or the pictures Foreign which figured in this salon. The most interesting Periodicals of those here discussed is Chardin's Benedicite, a second replica of one of those in the Louvre. this version the artist extended his canvas laterally to take in another figure which he succeeded in relating admirably with the original group. The purpose of this change was to make his picture a companion piece to a Teniers. The central composition was frequently repeated by contemporary copyists and imitators. Tradition française et musées d'art antique. By M. Georges Toudouze.-An eloquent appeal for the vulgarization of art, in the proper sense of the word, by making the arrangement of specimens more intelligible and interesting to the unlearned and by adding to fragmentary figures explanatory models of the whole figure or composition. RASSEGNA D'ARTE.-Le feste artistiche da Milano.-An account of the inauguration of the gallery of art in the castle at Milan, and of the new rooms at the Brera. The history of what the public spirit and intelligence of the Milanese has accomplished, both in the castle and the Brera, may well make us envy the energy of the decadent Latin races. To take the Brera: in the last four years, under the able direction of Signor Ricci, the Brera has been entirely remodelled; the sixteen galleries have been increased to thirty-five, in which the pictures are displayed according to their affinities of time and place; the frescoes by Luini from the chapel of S. Giuseppe in the della Pace have been placed on a vault expressly adapted to them; while among the new acquisitions, mentioning only the more important ones, we find eight frescoes by Bramante, four panels by Gentile du Fabriano, one by Benozzo Gozzoli, several pieces by Lazzaro Bastiani, Butinone, Beltraffio, Solario, Cosimo Tura, and a magnificent Cima. In addition to this, that most desirable adjunct to all places intended for the study of art, a large and representative collection of photographs, has been installed. We fear that in spite of our greater wealth the last four years' acquisitions by the National gallery would show poorly compared with the work accomplished in this provincial town in Italy. Butinone and Zenale: a reply by Malaguzzi Valeri to the criticisms of Herr Seidlitz, of which we gave an abstract last month. In this he maintains the validity of the date 145- for the altarpiece in the Brera, and brings in as evidence for its possibility Foppa's Crucifixion at Bergamo of 1456, which he describes as showing a The similar squarcionesque influence. We should Burlington have said that the influence was rather that of Magazine, Jacopo Bellini, and that the squarcionesque eleNumber ment found its way later into Lombard art and VI lingered on even when Leonardo was in the city. Della Robbia at Marseilles: two school pieces, one of which is catalogued by Miss Cruttwell, are figured and described by Signor Rossi. La Rocella di Squillace: Dr. Groeschel replies to the article by Signor Caviglia in the April number, in which this was referred to the sixth century. The author says that the naves were covered with ogival vaults, and that the church cannot antedate the end of the eleventh century. Miscellaneous Articles: Don Guido Cagnola, who is well known for his efforts in the preservation of works of art, writes to protest against the disfigurement and obliteration of pictures and frescoes by ecclesiastical authorities. An article signed Piceller describes vividly the battle of San Egidio and the capture of Malatesta; the description is fitted to the picture by Ucello in the National gallery. This is evidence of how little attention is paid abroad to the work of English historians of art, for Mr. Horne, in the Monthly Review for October 1901, once and for all disposed of the theory that Ucello's picture represents this battle. With admirable patience and minute research, he proved point by point that it represents the rout of San Romano in which Niccolo da Tolentino defeated the Sienese under Bernardino della Carda in 1432. His article leaves the matter no longer open to such vague guesses. Among various items of news we learn that a school piece of the Della Robbia which stood in the oratory of the Annunziata at Legri has been stolen, or rather broken to pieces and the greater part taken away. LA REVUE DE L'ART ANCIEN ET MODERNE.The July number is devoted almost exclusively to modern art. An article on the discoveries at Antinoe by Mons. Gayet describes some very remarkable Byzantine textiles, on which are symbols of a mixed Greco-Roman and Egyptian character, such as the Venus-Isis. The form, however, appears to be decadent Alexandrine Greek. ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW.-Contains an article by Mr. A. C. Champneys on Iona, with many excellent reproductions. The author's careful analysis of the building and the historical evidence seems only to show the hopeless uncertainty of any theories which would connect the existing buildings with the sites of St. Columba's art. REPERTORIUM FÜR KUNST WISSENSCHAFT.— Die Gotteshauser von Meran, der Alten Hauptstadt des Landes Tirol. By Franz Jacop Schmitt. An analysis of the architectural features of the churches of Meran and the neighbourhood, with the result, which the author describes as hocherfreulich, of finding that German gothic forms crossed the border line between the ecclesiastical provinces of Mayence and Aquileja, and are found in parts of Tyrol where Italian was the spoken language. The result is interesting; the patriotic fervour with which the author hails it is to be deprecated in writing the history of ¶Due Strambotti inediti per Antonio Vinciguerra e un ignoto ritratto di Vettor Carpaccio. By Arduino Colasanti. The author publishes two octaves by an unknown poetaster of the end of the quattrocento. In one written about 1502 he describes a portrait of Antonio Vinciguerra, called il Cronico, by Carpaccio. The portrait, like others by the same hand of which we have records, has disappeared. ¶Ueber die Proportionsgesetze, etc. By Constantin Winterburg. A third instalment of this minute analysis of the types of proportion established by Dürer, and of the changes in his point of view between the first and second book. ¶Die Allegerie des Leben und Todes in der Gemäldegalerie des Germanischen Museums. By Ludwig Lorenz. An account of the picture in two parts of the above subject, No. 135 in the Nuremberg museum. The author finds in this remarkable work, which was originally ascribed to the mysterious Gerard van der Meire, the characteristics of the Meister des Hausbuches, an artist of the middle Rhenish school, known hitherto only by his engravings. Zur Geschichte der Plastik Schlesiens von 1550-1720. By Berthold Haendcke. The author praises highly the renaissance sculpture of Silesia, and finds in the best work the influence of Italian, and, to some extent, Flemish models, but rejects with some fervour the idea of foreign workmanship. R. E. F. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE NOTES FROM FRANCE 1 EXHIBITION OF FRENCH PRIMITIVES The splendid exhibition at Bruges, of which Mr. W. H. James Weale is writing for the readers of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE with that eminent proficiency for which he is so widely known, has had an unexpected effect and has become the decisive cause of the realization of a plan dear to numbers of French art-lovers. I refer to an exhibition of French primitives. ¶ The origin of the talent of the van Eycks has long preoccupied the minds of arthistorians. M. P. Durrieu said lately, in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts: 'The prodigious talent of the van Eycks seems to be revealed suddenly, like a sort of brilliant meteor, which bursts forth and dazzles men's eyes. It presents a peculiarly attractive problem.' ¶ The Bruges exhibition has given a fresh impulse to the study of the question. On the other hand, it has brought home to us the injustice of the profound neglect into which we had allowed our old French masters to fall, while the renown of the primitives of Flanders and Italy was increasing year by year. Lastly, certain works attributed to the Flemish artists, some of which even figured in this way in the Bruges exhibition, had called for a more careful examination, which led eventually to French attributions. The question was really pertinent. I have spoken of 'profound neglect.' The expression is not strictly accurate. M. Paul Vitry, of the Louvre, published lately a remarkable pamphlet in which he resuscitated a whole collection of French works on our old fifteenth-century painters. He quoted the studies of Vallet de Viriville, of the Marquis de Laborde, of Messrs. de Grandmaison, Bouchot, Leprieur, Durrieu, Salmon, Benoît, Salomon Reinach, etc. It is nevertheless true that an undeserved ostracism and an unjustifiable ignorance still weigh down upon the French primitives. Every art-lover will applaud the happy initiative of M. Henri Bouchot, the distinguished keeper of prints at the national library, who has undertaken to restore to our painters of the middle ages and the Renaissance the glorious place which they have the right to occupy in the history of art. Without seeking in the least to detract from the value of the Flemish primitives, it is nevertheless well to recall the close connexion that exists between their work and that of our limners of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, whose reputation at that time was worldwide. Is it not likely that the latter were the masters and leaders of the former? The artistic centre of the world in the fourteenth century was the court of the Valois. We owe the prodigious output of works of art that forms the pride of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to those Maecenases who are known as Philip VI, John II, Charles V, to the dukes of Berry, Anjou and 1 Translated by A. Teixeira de Mattos. Burgundy. M. Bouchot has thought that it would be interesting to show de visu how great was the influence upon the destinies of art of all those master-pieces conceived and executed for princes so French in their taste and language. Would it not be interesting to prove that the van Eycks were the heirs of the Limbourg-Malouels, who worked in France for the duke of Berry, and that such Flemings as Broderlam were inspired by Jacquemart de Hesdin and Andrê Beauneveu, themselves the successors of our old Parisian miniature painter, Pucelle? ¶ Thanks to M. Henri Bouchot, who knows this period of our national art better than any of his contemporaries, the exhibition of French primitives has issued from the conception stage and entered into the domain of active life. It will be held in 1904. The French government has given its best support. The exhibition is organized under the honorary presidency of the minister of public instruction and the honorary vice-presidency of the director of fine arts and the director of higher education, and it will have for its acting president M. Aynard, member of the Institute, and for its vice-presidents M. Georges Berger, president of the Union centrale des Arts décoratifs, and M. Robert de Lasteyrie, member of the Institute, professor at the École des Chartes. The members of the managing committee are M. Léopold Delisle of the Institute, administrator of the national library; M. Kaempfen, director of the national museums; M. Pascal, of the Institute, inspector-general of civil buildings. The members of the council of organization are, for painting, M. Georges Lafenestre, of the Institute; for miniatures, M. Henri Omont, of the Institute; for tapestries, M. Maurice Fenaille; for enamels, M. E. Saglio, of the Institute. The general secretary is M. Henri Bouchot, keeper of the print-room and a member of the consultative committee of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, assisted by M. P. A. Lemoisne. The treasurer is M. T. Mortreuil, treasurer-general of the national library, assisted by M. P. Lacombe. ¶ There will doubtless be three exhibitions: one at the Louvre, which will include the primitives of that museum and those of Cluny; the second at the national library, consisting of the rich collection of miniatures in the print-room. The third exhibition, the place of which is not yet definitely fixed, will comprise the works lent by the provincial museums and by private collectors. These will be very numerous and very fine, to judge by the many kind offers which M. Henri Bouchot has already received. I can only repeat the words of M. Paul Vitry and hope with him that all those who set store by the glory of French art and of art pure and simple will make a point of supporting 'the Bouchot plan' and giving it, at the exhibition of French primitives, the benefit of their knowledge and of their good will.' G. DE RORTHAYS. Burlington Number VI a master-piece of the sixteenth century in all its magnificence, the work of its complete restoration, which is now being pursued, will appear enormous. Thanks to the support of the state, of the city of Rouen and of the diocesan administration, this work will be entirely finished within a few years. It is already, in fact, well forward. During the last three well-filled years, they have restored, on either side of the central portion, a whole row of little gables and fourteenth-century niches, in which old statues, kept in reserve in the Tour de Beurre and the Cour d'Albane, have been replaced. They have also completely reconstructed and reerected two large stone pyramids, 16 m. in height, which had not been rebuilt since the terrible hurricane which in 1632, in a few hours, overthrew most of the steeples and spires of the Rouen churches. These works were followed by the complete restoration of the large central gable, against which the extremity of the roofing of the nave rests, and by the entire repair of the great open gallery, dating to the end of the fifteenth century. At the same time one of the great buttresses flanking the main front was removed. They were erected in our own time, when, after the fire of 1822, the new metal spire was constructed by the architect Alavoine. This buttress, the carving of which had never been executed, and which had remained corroded, has been replaced by a large fourteenth-century buttress. There remains another, which will also be entirely replaced. ¶ These different works completing the restoration of the upper portions of the portal have allowed an important part of the tall scaffolding that concealed it to be removed. There still remains to be restored the whole of the lower portion of the portal, notably the great gable, very much fretted and sunk, which at present supports the clock; the great arch of the rose-window and the rose itself; and, lastly, the covings, embellished with innumerable small statues, sheltered under canopies, that form the chief portal itself. It is to be hoped that they will be able to put back all those delicious little figures of which a large number were broken down by the Protestants: they will probably succeed in doing so, for the credit placed at the disposal of the restoring architect, M. Sauvageot, is about to be increased by a sum of 600,000 fr., bequeathed to the archbishop for the express object of being employed exclusively on this work of restitution in the cathedral, by M. Gosselin, an architect who had long collaborated in the work of the cathedral church. Several works have been carried out in the archbishop's palace itself. For instance, they have been engaged on the restoration of a gallery, on the east side overlooking the garden, which was built during the Renaissance by one of the Cardinals d'Amboise, at the same time as a pretty fountain in marble, the memory of which has been preserved by Jacques Le Lieur, who drew it for his 'Livre des fontaines.' This gallery, supported by columns, is to be restored to its original form. During the excavations necessitated by the construction of an important building in the rue Grand Pont the eminent archaeologist M. Léon de Vesly, corresponding member of the ministry of public instruction, brought to light, at a depth of 5 m., numerous fragments of red earthen Samos bowls, handsomely decorated. ¶I will mention the following among the objects discovered: the bottom of a basin, in red earth, 120 m. in diameter, with the inscription, SCOTNS: Scotnus (See 'Corpus inscriptionum latinarum,' Vol. XII, p. 758. Scotnus, Vase found at Nîmes and in the Saint-Germain museum). Another bottom of a dish, 151 m., with the ONESM Onesimus Caï Annus. This inscription CANNI is a mark of Arezzo read by M. Seymour de Ricci (See the 'Corpus inscript.,' Vol. XIII, part 3, p. 95). ¶The bottom of a lecythus, 40 m., with, on a rectangular seal, the mark CACASIM. ¶ Fragments of a large amphora. On the rim, near the sinus, from right to left, SEX VALECT: Sextus Valenus fecit, with a cartouche with a rectangular border and circles. Other discoveries included an antefix of a somewhat rare character, seeing that the Saint-Germain museum does not contain a similar one. It is decorated with the figure of a child, full-face, with puffed cheeks, and forms the stem of a palm-leaf. This is evidently the copy of a type of antefix that came from Italy or Greece. Among the remains found in the excavation were also found many bones of cattle, of the Sus scrofa, or wild-sow, and vestiges of stakes, of which an array had already been discovered previously, which might suggest the existence of a lacustrine settlement in the neighbourhood of the Seine. ¶ In the course of the excavations executed on the site of the Haute Vieille Tour, where stood the original palace of the dukes of Normandy, there were found, beside important vestiges of military fortifications, a little bottle, in black earth, of Roman origin; various bones, including numerous horns of the cervus elephas; and two fifteenthcentury tokens. One of these is 026 m. in diameter, and bears on the obverse a caravel, on the reverse a lozenged shield charged with four fleurs-de-lys. It is said to resemble the English noble. The other measures 032 m. This is a French token, imitated from the coinage of Dauphiné, a dolphin quartered with fleurs-de-lys. A silver half-crown of Louis XV, dated 1741, was also found, as was a token of German make of the eighteenth century, bearing on the obverse a quartered shield and on the reverse the legend CVIQUE SVVM, and the date 1701. GEORGES DUBOSC. |