ROUND THE ARTISTIC SOCIETIES At the Academy of Inscriptions M. Salomon Reinach is showing, with a commentary, twentytwo photographs of illuminations from a MS. of Froissart, written for the great Bastard of Burgundy in 1469, and presented to the library at Breslau in the sixteenth century. M. Heuzey is dealing with the excavations at Tello, which have resulted, among other things, in proving the existence of polychromy in ancient Chaldean sculpture. At the Society of Antiquaries of France M. Durrieu announces a discovery by M. Lucien Magne, who has recognized in one of the miniatures in the Duke de Berry's Book of Hours at Chantilly a reproduction of the Castle of Saumur. M. Henri Martin communicates a Book of Hours from the Library of the Arsenal, which appears to have belonged to Duke John de Berry. At the Academy of Fine Arts M. Carolus Duran has been elected to the chair of M. Gérome, recently deceased. M. Holleaux has just been appointed director of the French school at Athens in place of M. Homolle, who has become director of the National Museums. G. de R. NOTES FROM BELGIUM1 To celebrate the tenth year of its existence, the 'Libre Esthétique' has organized an exhibition which brings together the pictures of the impressionist painters from Manet down to those who are now called neo-impressionists. This is the first occasion on which an attempt has been made to collect into a single whole an artistic movement which has been almost more hotly discussed than any, but is now more impartially judged than it used to be, and is beginning to have its real position recognized. However, these discussions have brought one curious fact to light: no one seems to have any clear idea what impressionism means, and the definitions that have been attempted have satisfied nobody. If impressionism is to be restricted to the use of the pointillé-that is, to the division of tones on the canvas-the limits prescribed are too narrow; if they are extended, there is no knowing where to stop. The state of things revealed by the discussion is shown also by the exhibition. In Manet we are bound to acknowledge the masterly painting of the great classics. He shows it in every one of his works, be it the fine portrait of Antonin Proust, the audacious open-air of his Lessiveuse, or the sketch of the famous Bar of the Folies Bergères, which formerly roused such extraordinary wrath against the painter. 1 Translated by Harold Child. In the presence of his works, we find it hard to explain the opposition of the past; they are plainly in close touch with the solid and fruitful movement that produced men like Delacroix and Courbet in France, and we class them instinctively with the vigorous painting practised by Frans Hals and Velasquez. The revolution that seems particularly to have found definite expression in them is the quest of the beauty of modern life in its most diverse aspects, at a time when classical tradition declared the spectacle to be void both of dignity and beauty. It was a pictorial naturalism analogous to the literary naturalism of Flaubert, the de Goncourts, and Zola. The actual painting was in a broad and easy style which renewed the tradition of the great masters, as opposed to an official and degenerate academism. This impression is continued when we come to examine the work of Degas. The two admirable portraits of men by this singular artist reveal an austere and great art and a broad and free painting which make him as secure of the future as any of the French nineteenth-century artists. And side by side with these long and lovingly handled works, we come upon silhouettes of dancing girls, dashing pastel sketches, in which the flow of the artificial life of the theatre is spiritually fixed, and in which the connexion with certain caprices of the French eighteenth-century masters, and especially of Watteau, may easily be seen. It is to these French masters, again, that Renoir shows his relationship; some of his works, especially the Loge, are among the finest and best selected in the exhibition. The landscape painters of the impressionist school, too, are descended from the same stock; among them Claude Monet, who, side by side with a solid painting closely attentive to the forms that support his colour, shows a strange falling-off in works where the substance is soft and of no consistency; and, once more, the same French tradition is responsible for Sisley and Pissarro, very unequal painters, sometimes charming and sometimes heavy and blatant in their landscapes. In the same exhibition with these painters, who belong to the first efforts of impressionism, we have the new-comers: Pierre d'Espagnat, as directly inspired by the Muses with a vision as false and stupid as the feeblest of the classical painters; Vuillard and Bonnard, who are all but caricaturists; Henri Cross and Seurat, who are not to be tolerated. Last of all, Maurice Denis, with whom everyone in France is violently infatuated; even in official circles they venture to compare him with Puvis de Chavannes, and it needs real courage to take up arms against him. I am aware that, in refusing to admit his claims, I am laying myself open to sarcastic remarks, but I cannot see in him anything but a gifted man who has never learned anything, and is incapable of using his gifts. I am certain that the future will speedily consign work so false and so void of interest to oblivion. Finally, after M. Van Rysselberghe, who shows a masterly skill and knowledge in the process of the division of tones, we come to two artists, curious and incomplete indeed, but exceedingly interesting for the very excess of their practice: Van Gogh and Gauguin. Both are dead. Van Gogh was mad, and the lack of mental balance which declared itself in the sickness that terminated his life found earlier expression in his works. His saturated excess of colour and the violence with which it is laid upon his grimacing and tortured forms resulted nevertheless in a genuine artistic impression. In the case of Gauguin, who died nearly a year ago in Tahiti, his painting, with its saturated and sumptuous tones like harmonies of Asiatic fabrics, reveals his composite origin and a vision belonging to another race. spite of his faulty drawing, in spite of his failings and mistakes, the contemplation of his works gives the impression of an artist who, in the shock of uncertain powers, possessed impressive gifts not far removed from genius. From the exhibition as a whole, then, we may draw a conclusion that will help, perhaps, to put the impressionist movement in its proper place in the history of modern art. Its masters belong to the tradition which developed the French art of the nineteenth century; they hold an important place in it, and react equally against the cold academism of the classical schools and the black painting and excessive agitation of the bastard romantics. They upheld the right of modern life to be rendered æsthetically, and they restored the feeling for light into the processes of painting. But, as a definite school, their part is played. The pointillé remains a technicality without the suppleness or the variety necessary to maintain its use, and, with the exception of lawless individualities like Van Gogh or Gauguin, the neo-impressionists show nothing but exhaustion, mannerism, and the artificial cultivation of a tradition of which they have let the fruitful elements slip, and which is dying in their hands. AERSCHOT The chapter of the church of Aerschot is thinking of rebuilding the marvellous gothic choirstalls in their original form. The work would be very expensive, for about 1833 the upper parts of the stalls were taken off and sold to certain antiquaries. They now form one of the finest specimens of wood-carving of the pointed tertiary style in South Kensington Museum. In order to restore the ancient stalls, the NOTES FROM HOLLAND THE Ryks Museum at Amsterdam, so famous for its rich picture gallery of works by old masters, but until some months ago not very strong in representative works by the new ones, has lately been enabled to exhibit a more complete series by Dutch masters of the 1870 school. The fact is that Mr. J. C. J. Drucker, of London, the wellknown collector, has recently lent to the museum a very fine collection of fourteen pictures and fifteen water-colours by Mauve, William Maris, Weissenbruch, Neuhuys, and Sir Laurence Alma Tadema. The major part of these works are excellent specimens of Mauve's art, which could until now only be judged from two pictures. A temporary exhibition of Dutch woodcuts has been opened in the print department of the same museum. The art of woodcutting was already in very early times exercised in Holland; samples of it are to be found only in rare books of the fifteenth century, especially interesting ones in the Biblia Pauperum, but of these none are exhibited. The earliest ones shown are two anonymous cuts of 1500-the Mass of S. Gregory, and a bust of Christ, both of a very primitive feeling and execution. But better specimens follow by masters of the first half of the sixteenth century, like Jacob Cornelisz of Oostsanen; Jan Swart, an unknown master of 1522, making diableries in the Flemish style; Cornelis Anthonissen; and last not least, Lucas van Leyden, whose woodcuts are extremely original, while other work displays now and then German influence of Dürer, Aldegrever, etc. The art was carried on during the second half of that century by several masters, and was especially skilfully exercised by Hendrick Goltzius, who often printed his cuts in more than one colour with more blocks. During the sixteenth century Bloemaert, Moreelse, van Sichem, Salomon and Dirck de Bray made good work, which was surpassed however by the highly attractive portraits and landscapes by Jan Lievens. The art thereafter got more and more neglected until recently, when it was successfully taken up by Veldheer, Nieuwenkamp, and Graadt van Roggen. F. L. ANTIQUITIES BRITISH MUSEUM. A guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities. (9 x 5) London (British Museum), 1s. [Illustrated.] PETRIE (W. M. F.). Methods and Aims in Archaeology. (8 x 5) London (Macmillan), 5s. net. [Illustrated.] STRZYGOWSKI (J.). Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire: Koptische Kunst. (14 × 10) Vienne (Holzhausen); Leipzig (Hiersemann), 78 fr. Companion and supplementary vol. to W. E. Crum's Catalogue of Coptic Monuments. In German; 350 pp. 57 plates, and text illustrations. GARDNER (E. G.). The Story of Siena and San Gimignano. Illustrated by the late Helen M. James. (7 × 5) London (Dent), 4s. 6d. net. Mediaeval Towns' Series. OESER (M.). Geschichte der Stadt Mannheim. (10 x 6) Mannheim (Bensheimer). go illustrations; pp. 89-525 are occupied with a detailed account of Mannheim's art history. DITCHFIELD (Rev. P. H.). Memorials of Old Oxfordshire. (9×6) London (Bemrose), 15s. [23 plates.] LUCAS (E. V.). Highways and byways in Sussex. Illustrations by F. L. Griggs. (8 x 5) London (Macmillan), 6s. BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS AND MONOGRAPHS MARZO (G. di). Di Antonello da Messina e dei suoi congiunti. (11 x 8) Palermo (Scuola tip. Boccone del Povero '), 5 lire. This important work is reprinted from the Documenti per Servire alla Storia di Sicilia,' published by the Società Siciliana per la Storia Patria.' VITZTHUM (G. Count). Bernardo Daddi. (9 × 6) Leipzig (Hiersemann). [7 plates.] Perzynski (F.). Hokusai. (10 × 7) Leipzig (Velhagen & Klasing), 4 m. The first German monograph upon a Japanese artist; 103 illustrations, six in colour. Knack fuss' Künstler Monographien. CORKRAN (A.). Frederic Leighton. (6 × 4) London (Methuen), 2s. 6d. net. Illustrated. Little Books on Art.' TROG (H.). Hans Sandreuter. (117) Zürich (Fäsi & Beer for Zurich Kunstgesellschaft), 4 m. SKETCHLEY (R. E. D.). Watts. [Illustrated.] (6 × 5) London (Methuen) 2s. 6d. net. [Illustrated.] Little Books on Art.' RÖTTINGER (H.). Hans Weiditz der Petrarkameister. (10 × 7) Strassburg (Heitz), 8 m. [31 plates and text illustrations.] SINGER (H. W.). James McN. Whistler. (6 × 5) Berlin (Bard), Muther's Die Kunst,' vol. 19. [11 illustrations.] I m. 25. ARCHITECTURE STURGIS (R.). How to judge Architecture, a popular guide to the appreciation of Buildings. (9×6) London (Macmillan), 6s. net. [65 illustrations.] RANDALL-MACIVER (D.), and MACE (A. C.). El Amrah and Abydos, 1899-1901. (12 x 10) London (extra publication of the Egypt Exploration Fund). [60 plates.] DAVIES (N. de G.). The Rock-Tombs of El Amarna, 1. the tomb of Meryra. (12 x 10) London (Egypt Exploration Fund). [42 plates.] PONTREMOLI (E.), and HAUSSOULLIER (B.). Didymes, fouilles de 1895 et 1896. (14 × 11) Paris (Leroux). Illustrated. [Part II of the BUTLER (H. C.). Architecture and other arts. Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899-1900]. (15×11) New York (Century Co.), [420 pp. copiously illustrated.] THIERSCH (H.). Zwei antike Grabanlagen bei Alexandria. (18 x 13) Berlin (Reimer). The details of mural decoration in these tombs are reproduced in colour. [18 pp., 6 plates, and text illustrations.] OLUFSEN (O.). The Second Danish Pamir-expedition. Old and new Architecture in Khiva, Bokhara, and Turkestan. (14 X 11) Copenhagen (Gyldendalske Boghandel). [26 pp.; 24 plates.] ROHAULT DE FLEURY (C.). Gallia Dominicana: les Convents 2 vols. Paris (Lethelde St. Dominique au moyen age. lieux), 120 fr. The author pursues the method of publication followed in his 'Saints de la Messe.' A short descriptive text is accompanied by etched views of the conventual buildings, details, etc. GURLITT (C.). Historische Städtebilder. Band v. Lyon. (19 × 13) Berlin (Wasmuth). [30 plates; text 30 pp.] KOSSMANN (B.). Der Ostpalast sogenannter Otto Heinrichsbau zu Heidelberg. (10 × 7). Strassburg (Heitz), 4 m. [4 plates.] DIETRICH (W.). Beiträge zur Entwicklung des Bürgerlichen Wohnhauses in Sachsen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. 88 pp. (139) Leipzig (Twietmeyer). [Illustrated.] MARIOTTI (C.). Cenni storici ed artistici sul Palazzo del Popolo in Ascoli Piceno. (9x6) Ascoli Piceno. [84 pp.; I plate.] LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL. The story of the past, the need of the present, the dream of the future. 28 pp. (9×7) Liverpool (Church House), 3d. [Illustrated]. DESMOND (H. W.), and CROLY (H.). Stately homes in America from colonial times to the present day. (10 x 8) London (Gay & Bird), 31s. 6d. net. PAINTING ADDISON (J. de W.). The Art of the Pitti Palace, Florence. With a short history of the building and its owners. London (Bell), 6s. net. [Illustrated.] MARIUS (G. H.). De Hollandsche Schilderkunst in de Negentiende Eeuw. (10 x 6) 's-Gravenhage (Nijhoff). [Illustrations.] FOERSTER (R.). Moritz von Schwinds philostratische Gemälde. (14 x 11). Leipzig (Breitkopf & Härtel). [8 plates.] SCULPTURE DANIELLI (J.). Les figurines de Tanagra et de Myrina; étude et commentaires nouveaux sur leur caractère. (10 × 7) Paris (Bernard), 3 fr. 50. WALTERS (H. B.). Catalogue of the Terracottas in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum. (10 x 8.) London (British Museum.) SAUERLANDT (M.). Die Bild werke des Giovanni Pisano. (10 × 6) Düsseldorf & Leipzig (Langewiesche), 35. 6d. [31 illustrations.] [N.B.-Part of this List is unavoidably held over.] CRUIKSHANK'S WATER-COLOURS. By Joseph Grego. Black, London. Price 20s. net. By Alice Price 21s. A. & C. HANS WEIDitz DER PETRARKAMEISTER. By R. Röttinger. ZUR KUNSTGESCHICHTE DES AUSLANDES. By Walter Stangel. FRANÇOIS RUDE, sculpteur. By L. de Fourcaud. Librairie de l'art ancien et moderne, Paris. Price 12 fr. |
