CHRISTMAS BOOKS, ETC.
Venice. By Charles Yriarte. (G. Bell and Sons.)—This fine work now appears in an English dress. The translation from the French has been well done by Mr. F. J. Sitwell, but the illustrations strike us as inferior, not merely in printing, but in sharpness and sure- ness of line, and in delicacy of half-tones, to those in the original issue. The frontispiece, for example, affords but a poor and indis- tinct rendering of the "Triumph of Venice," the immense design by Veronese on the ceiling of the grand council-hall in the Doge's palace. The utmost precision of light and shade were peculiarly needed here, that the complex and difficult design might be intelli• gible. Again, the border surrounding the title-page affords an ex- ample of a fault common to all similar designs throughout the book, notably the initials which bead the chapters,—the heavy blackness of the background overwhelms the finer parts of the arabesque design. There are four parts in this work, all accompanied by numerous and suitable illustrations. Part I. includes Venetian history from the time of the first settlers on the lagoon down to the incorporation of Venice with the Italian Kingdom. Of course prominence is given to picturesque incidents, and a systematic account of the development of this strange but beautiful city of waters must not be expected. If, indeed, we look at the titles of the six chapters which are comprised in this first part of the volume, we see that one of them is devoted to the art of medal- engraving. Now, this gives a key to the method of the whole work before us. For we find here that history is made use of to explain the development of art, rather than art to illustrate history. The nine chapters of Part II. are devoted to Art, the author including in that term architecture, sculpture, painting, and, oddly enough, print- ing, but relegating to Part III., and to the heading of "Industrial Arts and Costume," such Bubjects as mosaics and lace. Part IV. of the volume sufficiently indicates by its title, "Venice of To-day," the subjects of which it treats l—the approach to the city, the canals, the palaces, the churches, St. Mark's, the lead. and wells, the inhabitants, and what remains of past glories the 'visitor of to-day may still study and rejoice in, if he will. Almost every page of this book bears an illustrative engraving, —now the portrait of a Doge, now a view of a palace, now the Dogaressa in state costume, now the interior of a church, now a re- production of some famous composition by Veronese or Titian ; then a carved well-mouth, a bronze candelabrum, a knocker, a sword, a piece of lace, a goblet of sixteenth century glass. Amidst so great and so varied a crowd of engravings, one can but signalise a few of those will& specially commend themselves on account of the beauty of their execution or the happy art by which they sucoessfully render the object portrayed. The Bridge of Sighs (p. 15), the cloisters of St. Maria dei Fran (p. 32), and the unnamed vignette on p. 34 may be cited (from Part I.) as fortunate examples of the skill of artist and engraver in reproducing the effect of the 'Venetian architecture in the Venetian atmosphere. These and many other illustrations in the volume are free from that extravagant use of unmitigated contrasts of black and white, and those pictorial conventionalities and artifices which were so fashionable until a generation back. Before leaving this Part I. of Yriarte's Venice, we must direct attention to the Spire on p. 64: of the casket, in which the horned cap, or come, of the Doge was at one time kept. This beautiful work of the sixteenth century is now in the possession of a private collector. We must not linger over the illustrations of the different styles and details of architecture in Part 1I., but we may note, in passing, the whole-page engraving of the façade of St. Mark's, opposite p. 80, peculiarly interesting just now ; while we may commend to the readers' special attention as interesting, either in subject or in treatment, the figures, on pp. 82, 83, 120, 121, 132, 133, 157, 161, and 219. The disquisition on the famous glass productions of Venice and Murano, which M. YEarte gives, and the pictures of glass mosaics and glass vessels with which it is adorned, are of special interest, and show considerable research and sound judgment. The specimens of seventeenth century glass, on page 231, are well rendered, and so are the sixteenth century goblets and ewers, &c., on pp. 234, 235, and 236. We should have been glad of a few figures of those Muranese beads which formed so important and so widely-spread an article of commerce from the earliest middle-ages, and which were obviously at first reproductions, if not continuations, of antique Roman manu- factures of the classic time. In Chapter xvii. there are some exquisite designs of lace, the development or changes in its style of orne.ment being duly recorded and illustrated. This sumptuous pro- duction reached its perfection of richness in the rose-point of the sixteenth century, but the severer geometrical styles of very varied dates have a peculiar though quieter charm in many artistic eyes. But if the first three parts of this sumptuous volume are rich in suitable and varied illustrations, and at the same time are full of excellent descriptive writing, sympathetic yet truthful, what special forms of praise shall be allotted to the fourth and last part of the work, crowded as it is with all manner of beauties P We can but ask our readers to admire for themselves the full-page engravings of the Vendramini, Grimani, and Foecari Palaces, and the smaller sketches of bridges, boats, squares, courtyards, churches, and staircases, as well as the scenes of daily life and the characters therein. We may say that this volume is a brilliant and charming one, not complete or perfect in all respects, not taking up, indeed, at all such subjects as Venetian gold and silver plate or jewellery, nor arriving at that tender perfection and appreciation of art workmanship which char- acterisefi Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," or the "Catalogue of the Slade Collection of Glass," yet achieving a large measure of success in the direction, and within the limits of its own domain.— The Famous Parks and Gardens of the World. (Nelson and Sons.) —Provided the reader is not too critical as to accuracy in dates, in scientific names, and in the history and present condition of the parks and gardens noticed or described in this agreeable volume, the ex- quisitely tasteful illustrations with which it is so abundantly adorned will afford him varied and profitable enjoyment. In these pages may be found representations of gardens that may be imagined, but which never existed, save in imagination ; of the courts of Granada, the fountains and park of Versailles, and illustrative of the picturesque, the fanciful, the grotesque, the prim, the quaint, and many another variety of those arrangements of natural and artificial products—cloisters, temples, lakes, fountains, cascades, grottos, towers, avenues, clumps, &c.—which human ingenuity has associated with trees, and shrubs, and flowers, and grass. Every period and every country has contributed something to the entertainment spread before us in these pages. Classic, times in Italy and Greece, and the nineteenth century in England and France, Eastern lands in ancient and modern days,—all have been laid under contribution. And there are a dozen or more of beautiful and most truthful drawings of such fine trees and plants as the doodar cedar, the screw-pine, tree-ferns, eyefuls, palms, and Indian shot. Altogether, the volume is a choice and charming production, owing much to "Lea Jardine " of Mangle, but enriched with additional features of English origin—American Painters. By. (LW. Sheldon. (Cassell, Potter, and Galpin.)—Justice cannot be done to this admirable book without a more thorough analysis both of its illustra- tions and its literary contents than is possible hero. There are in the volume eighty-three engravings on wood after works of fifty artists, American, or living in the United States. Most of the painters are introduced by means of two choice examples of their skill,—enough, in the majority of cases, to convey some notion of their individual manner and merit. The engravings, in a good many instances, really succeed in rendering some of the effects of colour, as well as of light and shade and of drawing ; in others, they do not enable us to judge with any certainty of the artistic value of the works they are in- tended to reproduce. The notes on the life and labours of each artist are doubled in value in many cases by remarks and criticisms by the artists themselves, and occasionally by hints as to their palettes and methods of working. In turning over the leaves of this handsome gift- book, we note, besides the well-known " Chimborazo " of F. E. Church, some dozen other pictures which at once secure our admiration. The broad and bright but not flashing and dashing treatment of an Italian scene in S. R. Gifford's "Venice," compares favourably with the flippant trickeries of colour and manipulation too frequently characteristic of painters who give themselves to such subjects. J. B. Bristol's " Adirondacks " shows solid and sound drawing of mountain masses. There is a lovely " Twilight " by P. Moran, a Lancashire artist who evidently has a hearty sympathy with animals. W. Horner has a quaint picture of boys eating melons, and shows freshness and air in his reaper in the fields. "The Return to the Fold," by J. McD. Hart, is excellent work from the hand of a Scotchman. W. T. Richards is represented by a grandly simple coast-scene, where forest and ocean join. W. Shirlaw is a Scotch painter, whose "Tuning of the Bell" is rich and humorous. W. Whitteredge's " Rocky Mountain Aspens" is a poetic study of trunks and foliage, reminding us somewhat of the manner of Diaz. So also does the beat landscape in the book, the "Spring Chickens" of W. M. Hunt, a picture which com- bines exquisite tenderness with air and breadth. J. A. Brown's " Storm at the Isle of Shoals," gives the dash of water on low rocks at sea with force and truth. We should like to cite other examples of excellent workmanship or pictorial effect from this volume about "American Painters ;" but the limits of space forbid further description of its contents, though we must record a word of praise for the pleasing colours and design of its binding.— The Magazine of Art. Vol. II. (Cassell, Potter, and Galpin.)— This new and meritorious undertaking fulfils, and more than fulfils, its early promise. The excellence and variety of the illustrations are not its only merit, for the descriptive lettorpreee is, almost without exception, of very high quality. It affords popular and pleasant reading, but there is, at the same time, no failing in the direction of accuracy of statement and sobriety of judgment. Every sort of fine or decorative art is here represented, but pictures and painters justly occupy the most prominent position. The portraits and biographies of artists form an agreeable feature of the magazine. The thumb-nail sketches of the most striking pictures in our London and provincial exhibitions constitute a pleasing record of contempo- rary art work. Here, too, will be found something instructive in de- scription, and in neat and appropriate illustration, of the processes of lacomaking, etching, and wood-engraving, of the elements of Japanese design, of pleasant sketching-grounds, and of Doulton's Lambeth faYence. Mr. Soden Smith gives us some more chapters on the "Vicis- situdes of Art Treasures,"—a subject which he has made his own. One of these chapters describes the splendid treasures discovered some twenty years ago in the tomb of the Egyptian queen Aah-Hotep, while another chapter tells us of the famous sardonyx ewer, once counted amongst Fronoh national treasures, and afterwards a con- spicuous ornament of the Hope collection. Bat we cannot linger any longer over the contents of this marvellously cheap, and yet thoroughly sound, artistic periodical, the present volume of which reflects credit on publishers, contributors, and editor alike. It is, indeed, astonish- ing to learn that the future parts of this Magazine of Art will be en- larged and further enriched with illustrations, and yet without any increase of price.—Men of Mark : Fourth series. (Sampson Low.)— This last collection of the portraits of contemporary celebrities sus- tains, in the excellence of the likenesses and the selection of the sub- jects, the high character Of the three preceding series. Any volume which offers us thirty-seven really good likenesses of distinguished men of the day, and includes an equal number of carefully and simply written biographical notices, is sure to command the attention and appreciation it deserves. The portraits of Sir Samuel Baker, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Dr. Frankland, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the late Chinese Ambassador to the Court of St. James, W. P. Frith, R.A., Pro- fessor Huxley, and Thomas Hughes are of conspicuous excellence.
The International Portrait Gallery. (Cassell, Potter, and Galpin.)— Hero are a score of tinted lithographic portraits of distinguished public men, chiefly belonging to the world of politics. Seventeen of the likenesses represent Continental celebrities, two Americans, namely, President Hayes and the poet Longfellow, and one Scotch- man (the Marquis of Lorne) completing the list. Amongst the most refined and yet most lifelike of the portraits hero included, is that of Dr. Doellinger ; some of the others strike us as slightly tinctured with a degree of crudeness bordering on vulgarity. Evident pains have been taken to make the memoirs of the personages exact and interesting. The stories here given of the lives of such men as Garibaldi, Count Moltke, Prince Bismarck, Gambetta, Victor Hugo, and General Todleben are told with spirit, and though necessarily much con- densed, include the main incidents of their careers and the more conspicuous characteristics of their genius.—Breton Folk. By H. Blackburn and R. Caldeoott. (Sampsow Low and Co.) —The 170 illustrations which are scattered through this volume have, with hardly an exception, an element of quaint grotesqueness often verging upon caricature. But the general truthfulness of the sketches is, notwithstanding, quite evident ; and this conviction, that the artist and author have told us what they saw and heard, and have given us a faithful record of some phases of actual life in a Curiously old-world corner of France, commends their work very strongly to one's attention, The people are fully represented in these pen-and-pencil sketches, the country and the buildings scarcely at all. For a charming figure of a waitress at Qnimper, let the reader look at p. 104 ; for a bit of quiet humour, let him turn to p. 107. Though it is not a guide-book or travelling companion, the whole volume, letterpress and pictures, will prove of great interest both to travellers going to Brittany, and to those who have already scraped some sort of acquaintance with Breton folk.—Joan the Maid, by the Anther of "Chronicles of the Schenherg-Cotta Family," (Nelson.)—This book is quite worthy of the high reputa- tion already achieved by the author. The story of the Maid of Orleans, in all its beauty, and pathos, and horror—for there never was a more wicked deed than the slaying of her—is beautifully told. The author, with the skill so well known to all readers of her books, has skilfully linked with the historical narrative the personal interest attaching to some humbler characters. The authorities bearing upon the history of Joan seem to have been carefully studied, especially the proceedings of the court which in 1457 reversed the infamous sentence pronounced by Bishop Couchon.—Silver Linings ; or, Light and Shade. By Mrs. Reginald Bray. (Griffith and Farran.)—This is a very pretty story of a blind girl, who finds consolation for her missing sense, first, in all good and kind thoughts and acts for those about her ; and next, in the exercise of a great gift of music and song. Mrs. Bray is only too skilful in her use of pathos. We have seldom read a more affecting book, but those readers who do not like what is gloomy need not be afraid of it for that reason. It is not a pathos that leaves a sad impression, while the simplicity of the writing which creates it, wholly free as it is from any straining at effect, is a literary achievement of no small value. This if one of the boot books of the kind that we have seen for a long time.—Praise also is due to Mrs. Dobbs's Dull Boy, by Annette Lyster. (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.) —Jem is the dull and unambitious member of an "eminently genteel family," though he has a sister, Dolly, who is almost equally unworthy of her exalted position. But the genteel family comes to grief— perhaps the shadows are put in with a little too much black just here—and the dull boy and his sister rise, not, how- ever, with the supernatural ease and rapidity with which such risings are often accomplished in fiction, to prosperity and happiness. It is not every one who has Jem's luck in finding a treasure ; apart from this incident, and the exceptions at which we have hinted before, everything in the story is simply and naturally told, from the beginning down to the very characteristic scene of Dolly's courtship, with which it happily concludes.—From the same publishers we get Reclaimed, by A. Eubule Evans; and Narcissus : a Tale of Early Christian Times, by the Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter. We should guess that this kind of composition is new to Mr. Evans, while we may offer him a general congratulation on the result. The painter who is, or would be, the hero of the story, if the name were not far too good for him, is a distinct sketch, and the writer has manfully resisted the temptation of representing him as the subject of a melodramatic and improbable change of disposition. The heroine, and the old fisherman, and the clergyman, Mr. Suther- land, strike us as being more conventional and loss effective, though, indeed, they are meant to be the more striking characters. Nariissies is evidently the result of very careful study. The circumstances of the period (which is part of the second century) are accurately given, though, indeed, we may suggest that it is scarcely correct to give "Cams" as a fancy name to a young Roman. One would not call a character in an English story by the equivalent of " Henry " or "Charles." But the materials want, to say the least, a good deal of skilful working-up. The Christian apologists of the second century have now little but an historical interest, and it would be about as difficult a task as can be imagined to project suc- cessfully the imagination of a nineteenth-century reader into such controversy as was carried on between Justin Martyr or Athenagoras and their heathen or Jewish opponents. There is a little too much patristic learning in Narcissus.
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