FINE ARTS.
LAKE PRICE'S VIEWS IN VENICE.
THE name of Venice calls up a host of recollections, historic and poetic, architectural and pictorial : the glories of "the sea Cybele" have become linked with "our land's language" by associations with SHAKSPERE and BYRON 1 and contemporary artists from BON1NGTON and PROUT to STANFIELD and TURNER have made us familiar with its external features. The spacious Piazza of St. Mark, with its many-domed cathedral and lofty campanile, is almost as well known to us as West- minster Hall and Abbey and Palace Yard ; the Ducal Palace, its ruddy front banded with Gothic fretwork, is as easily recognized as White- hall ; the Bridge of Sighs and the Rialto are as old acquaintances as Westminster Bridge and Temple Bar ; while the pictures of CANA- LErro have enabled us to float in fancy along the streets of marble palaces, in the black gondolas that glide so swiftly over the wavy high- way—funereal barks freighted with love and beauty. Those who have seen Venice only in prints and pictures have hitherto looked at its lions from a distance: but Mr. LAKE PRICE carries us through the city, along the lesser canals and the paved thoroughfares ; we peep into court- yards and dark corners of piazzas, setting glimpses of the stately piles from different points of view ; visit churches and palaces, exploring every nook and corner of the Palace of the Doge and the Cathedral of St. Mark ; and are admitted to the studio of TITIAN, the boudoir of the Queen of Cyprus, and the room where BYRON wrote of Childe Harold. Besides the new objects thus opened to our view, we have well.
known features presented under fresh and characteristic aspects, and animated by the spirit of the place. The coloured marbles and gilded pinnacles of St. Mark's glow in the light of Italian sunshine, and the brilliancy of almost cloudless moonlight floods the Grand Canal on a festival-night, when the illuminated gondolas skim over its silver ripples like fire-flies; the quays and piazzas swarm with the population of the present day ; the churches display all the pomp of Popish pageantry ; the halls of the Ducal Palace are peopled with the Doge and Senators of old ; and in the saloons and antechambers of this and other palaces we encounter figure's that may have stood to TITIAN and PAUL VERONESE. In short, Venice lives both in the past and present times: we see her by day and by night, without and within doors : the brilliancy of the atmosphere, the elegance of the architectural forms, the gorgeous richness of the sculptured and pictorial decorations, and the sumptuous splendour of the furniture and hangings, are all vividly represented in this striking volume; at least so far as can be accom- plished without colour. The warm neutral tints and white lights of the lithography are sufficiently suggestive of sunlight ; and the views are full of atmosphere : the picturesque effects, accurately studied from nature, are preserved with admirable felicity, and convey lively im- pressions of the freshness, force, and gusto, that characterize the ori- ginals. The drawings on stone are by Mr. JOSEPH Ness; whose ex- pertness in the use of the material, and artistic feeling and taste, give to them more the appearance of first sketches than of copies or transla- tions: and though we cannot help wishing that the execution of the lithographs had been neater and smoother, every true lover of art will prefer their vigorous freedom and painter-like skill to cold and mechanical elaboration. Mr. PRICE bears testimony to the ability with which his friend and coadjutor, Mr. Ness, has seconded his efforts, by completely entering into the feeling of the original drawings."
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