at Berlin, the Derich de Born, at Windsor, and the Erasmus, at Longford Castle, which, for insight into character, heroic simplicity, and beauty of style, stand as monuments, so to say, to the glory of realistic art. Holbein is, in these portraits, a painter if ever there was one, despite the glib assumption made in some quarters that only Velasquez and one or two others deserve the title; yet there is no denying the great part which a purely linear quality plays in these very works. Mr. Davies rightly pays attention to the drawings as of no less significance than the paintings, for in Holbein's line, wherever we find it, we have the most characteristic reflection of his genius; in it he illustrates, with crystalline clearness, the power of knowledge and authority in art.

He stumbles over no details, he evades no problems, but draws with a kind of naked force, and proves, what it is always so important to remember, that in the artistic interpretation of beauty it is not in the least necessary to be esoteric, or to torture technique and experiment with the point or with the brush, until the truth is lost in a maze of self-conscious or eccentric" method." In his portraits, painted or drawn, you have art in its bare integrity. It is a testimony to the illimitable scope of art taken in that estate, that it still gives the freest sway to individuality. Holbein is almost scientific in his precision, but his style remains one of the most original in the annals of European painting. He is a standing protest against the theory that emotional rapture is the only source of great achievement in art. From his triumphs, as from those of Raphael, for example, we may know that intellectual power is also a key to artistic immortality.

With Holbein the drawing and the painting are practically interchangeable if we are pursuing the secret of his art;

1 The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. Classified, Criticized and Studied as Documents in the History and Appreciation of Tuscan

but, with most men, work with the pencil or chalk has meant a more spontaneous disclosure of personal qualities than usually goes with work in oils, and this circumstance has given to drawings a special place in the history of connoisseurship. Such souvenirs of a great artist have, of course, a strictly historical value, and are of much practical use in the clearing up of questions of attribution and the like. But if a study in chalk for some famous picture or decoration has much the same curious and instructive interest as attaches to a poet's first draft for some famous composition, it possesses, also, much more than the literary sketch, an intrinsic charm. The pressure of an artist's hand upon his crayon is an affair peculiarly self-revealing; it is like the violinist's pressure upon his bow, with this difference, that your musician must blend his personality with a definite idea if he is to make a successful appeal, whereas, in the case of the artist, it sometimes scarcely matters whether he has anything important to say or not; it is his way of saying it, it is his accent, which he can convey in the veriest trifle, that counts.

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Mr. Berenson's work on the Drawings of the Florentine Painters1 possesses unusual importance on its scientific side alone. The two huge volumes huge for mere convenience dertaken in a spirit of severe research. The author has classified his material, he has threshed out many questions of authenticity, and he has framed a catalogue, embracing nearly three thousand numbers, which constitutes in itself an indispensable work of reference. Surveying his draughtsmen, from the Primitives down to Pontormo and Rosso, in chronological order, he has annotated their works with a fullness of detail that places the student in search of critical information deeply in his debt. The facsimiles

Art. With a Copious Catalogue Raisonné. By BERNHARD BERENSON. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1903.

he gives are among the finest reproductions I have ever seen; they are, for ordinary working purposes, equivalents for the originals as nearly exact as could be desired. But I confess that it is not of the workshop that I am disposed to think longest in considering Mr. Berenson's book. I am grateful for the additions he has made to the tools of art criticism, but I am grateful also for the influence which the volumes must exert in developing artistic taste where it is too often weak.

I once heard a drawing of Dürer's criticised because the man it portrayed was made to appear cross-eyed. Per haps the poor creature was really so afflicted, but, supposing that Dürer had libeled him, we might deplore the slip without losing sight of the linear beauty with which the drawing brims over. Beauty of this sort does not need to be impeccable as regards fidelity to nature. In Holbein's drawings truth happens to be of prime significance. With many other masters, whether truth be present or not, our pleasure remains the same. It is the pleasure which you find in a delicately turned phrase, in an intonation, or even in a sudden and well-placed silence,

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the counterpart of the omission in linear art, one of the most potent of all sources of effect. Line is, in short, a language by itself, susceptible of being used for the conveyance of great thoughts or for the most casual and intimate purposes. The early Florentine fascinates you by flinging some new and beautiful creation in all its freshness upon the per, giving it a poignancy which may disappear when he comes to elaborate it into a formal scheme; or, with the best intentions in the world, seeking to carry out a given idea within the limits of a drawing, he actually ends by leaving you indifferent to his subject, as subject, and absorbed in what I may call purely autographic qualities. Mr. Berenson. well clarifies this point in speaking of Botticelli's illustrations to Dante. "Their value," he says, "consists in their being

drawings by Botticelli, not at all in their being illustrations to Dante," and he happily remarks of the Florentine that "he loved to make the line run and leap, to make it whirl and dance." Botticelli, being what he was, — a poet and a dreamer, wove his line into beautiful forms, and he moves the imagination, as he satisfies the eye, in these Dantesque drawings; they have the glamour of his fancy as they have the glamour of his style. But it is the glamour of style that we could not afford to do without.

It is the same with all the masters discussed by Mr. Berenson, and the fact ought never to be forgotten by the student, since it explains and justifies the survival across the ages, as objects of enthusiasm among artists and collectors, of drawings sometimes very nearly meaningless so far as subject is concerned. The merest scrap will often exert this perhaps sensuous spell upon the discerning critic. Witness Van Dyck's celebrated sketchbook at Chatsworth, which contains odds and ends of no earthly interest save as fragments of that language which the painter used when he dashed off a pictorial memorandum, a note on some masterpiece he saw in Italy. On the other hand, Mr. Berenson's collection of facsimiles emphasizes once more that element in Italian art which makes it unique, the instinctive and often, no doubt, unconscious expression, on the part of every painter or sculptor of any consequence whatever, of a feeling for the imponderable beauty that seems somehow bound up with all that was finest in the Italian genius of the golden age. They had something to say even when they were not themselves aware of it. That is, they put into their work character, distinction, the things that come from imaginative fervor. It is interesting to place an old Italian study of a limb or bit of drapery beside similar drawings from any modern studio, no matter how eminent. The old work quivers with inspiration, it has a kind of

soul. The modern work may be all compact of cleverness, it may suggest a wonderful eye and an extraordinarily skillful hand, but beside the other it is like an empty shell. Mr. Berenson gives us abundant data to support this contention, confining himself to the Florentines. I hope the preparation of a similar book by him, treating of the North Italian masters, is only a question of time, and not simply, I may add, because he writes about drawings to such good purpose, but because, in the course of his work, he has so much to say that is worth reading on the general aspects of Italian art. His chapters on Leonardo and Michael Angelo in this book are so suggestive, they are so rich in the fruits of scholarship, presented with far less pedantry than has hitherto marred his criticisms, that they deserve publication in a form more widely accessible. It might easily be worth while to publish the text and catalogue given in these volumes in a handy octavo, the illustrations being put in portfolios by themselves.

Mr. Berenson's heroic folios rather dwarf the other contributions which have recently been made to the literature of Italian art, but several of these nevertheless command high respect. I would place well in the forefront of this comparatively minor group of publications what is, in great measure, an old book, yet practically a new one, the revised edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle's History of Painting in Italy,1 which has long been out of print. Though it has never lost its usefulness, it has been much in need of correction. Sir Joseph Crowe, before he died in 1896, had finished the rewriting of more than a third of the book, and with the help of the additional manuscripts he left, and their own not inconsiderable resources, Mr. Langton

1 A History of Painting in Italy. By J. A. CROWE and G. B. CAVALCASELLE. Edited by R. LANGTON DOUGLAS, assisted by S. ARTHUR STRONG. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1903.

Douglas and Mr. S. Arthur Strong have undertaken to overhaul this classic of criticism and bring it abreast of the latest modern research. The publishers are giving it substantial if not luxurious form, numerous good half-tones being used as illustrations, with a few photogravures. The edition is to be completed in six volumes, two of which have thus far appeared, devoted respectively to Early Christian Art and Giotto and the Giottesques. In the first of these volumes there are brief sketches of the two authors, in which Mr. Douglas speaks of them with appreciation not only of their historical and critical aptitudes, but of their admirable personal qualities. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have suffered too much patronage at the hands of certain later writers, who, pinning their faith upon Morelli, have liked to assume that only from him- or from themselves — could the student expect to receive the pure milk of the word. Mr. Douglas, with a little needless temper, redresses the balance. The fact is that one has only to dip into these familiar pages to recall the services the devoted pair have rendered in illuminating many a bewildering question, and to realize anew with how much insight and thoroughness they did their work. Of course to-day they require editing. In Mr. Douglas's notes on the Rucellai Madonna, which he prefers to give to Duccio rather than to Cimabue, we have a good instance of the desirability of reëditing periodically a work of the sort. But it is noticeable that occasions for the drastic rehandling of any matter dealt with by Crowe and Cavalcaselle have not been frequent. This is one of the new art books which the student could not possibly ignore. With it must be bracketed the translation, bearing the hybrid title of The Anonimo,2

2 The Anonimo. Notes on Pictures and Works of Art in Italy made by an Anonymous Writer in the Sixteenth Century. Translated by PAOLO MUSSI. Edited by G. C. WILLIAMSON, Litt. D. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1903.

of those anonymous sixteenth-century notes which have been familiar to specialists in the original, but which have not hitherto been put into English. They record the observations of an intelligent traveler, whose pages are useful inasmuch as they give the original locations of certain famous works of art, describe others which have since been lost and may some day reappear, and give suggestive hints to the critic hunting down mysteries of attribution. The book has been well translated by Paolo Mussi, and Mr. G. C. Williamson has discreetly edited it. This edition contains, moreover, a number of good illustrations.

A book to be commended not only to the student but to the layman with artistic predilections is Mr. Charles Holroyd's Michael Angelo Buonarroti, which is really a translation of Condivi's Life, with the three famous dialogues by Francisco d' Ollanda placed at the back. Modern biographies of Michael Angelo, like the one which Symonds made almost but not quite definitive some ten years ago, are numerous enough, but Condivi's first-hand narrative has virtues to which none of his successors can lay claim, and which make it difficult to understand why it was not sooner put into English. It is full of living personal details. The tragic story of the tomb for Pope Julius has never been set forth elsewhere with the direct and vivid touch which we find in Condivi. Mr. Holroyd supplements his translation with some chapters of his own on Michael Angelo's work, exhibiting acumen and an admirable faculty for the blending of critical with biographical notes; and his version of the Portuguese dialogues rounds out a book which has a

1 Michael Angelo Buonarroti. By CHARLES HOLROYD, Keeper of the National Gallery of British Art, with Translations of the Life of the Master by his Scholar, ASCANIO CONDIVI, and Three Dialogues from the Portuguese of Francisco d' Ollanda. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1903.

2 Donatello. By Lord BALCARRES. York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1903.

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much more tangible reason for existing than is often to be discovered where art publications are concerned. It is the first volume in a series published under the general title of the Library of Art. It has been followed by a monograph on Donatello, by Lord Balcarres, a carefully written production, supplying guidance that is trustworthy, but none of the glow which it would be good to find in a study of such an inspiring theme. Both books are attractively made and have many half-tone illustrations. Only subjects of the highest importance are to be treated in the series. It is to include volumes on Titian, Dürer, Correggio, and Pisanello, and there are to be others on groups or schools of painters, as, for example, Ghirlandajo and the Earlier Florentines, Raphael and his School in Rome, and the Three Bellini and the Earlier Venetians. The prospectus is exceptionally promising, and the two volumes briefly touched upon above warrant the assumption that the series will be maintained upon a level of serious, authoritative workmanship.

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Of no popular series, however, is it safe to predicate absolutely uniform excellence. In the one, for example, edited by Dr. Williamson under the title of the Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture, the Botticelli by Mr. A. Streeter, which has recently appeared, is a mildly creditable handbook, but nothing more. The Michael Angelo Buonarroti of Lord Ronald Gower, though painstaking enough, is, on the whole, rather wooden. The same author's Thomas Gainsborough," in the British Artists Series, is a better book, and will serve as a rapid sketch of the subject; but it is at bottom a

3 Botticelli. By A. STREETER. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1903.

4 Michael Angelo Buonarroti. By Lord RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER, F. S. A. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1903.

5 Thomas Gainsborough. By Lord RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER, F. S. A. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1903.

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commonplace piece of work, and is chiefly to be valued for its illustrations, which include a welcome batch of the paint er's drawings and studies. The series of pocket volumes called the Popular Library of Art, edited by Edward Garnett, has thus far preserved, in its modest way, a good standard. Dr. Gronau's Leonardo da Vinci1 is a first-rate piece of condensation. Less weighty, but thoroughly intelligent and readable, are the booklets written for this series by Miss Lina Eckenstein on Albrecht Dürer,2 by M. Romain Rolland on Millet, by M. Camille Mauclair on the French Impressionists, and by Mr. A. B. Chamberlain on Thomas Gainsborough. This series is a good one for beginners. The monographs in it are brief, they contain enough information, and though published at a small price are very well illustrated. The last series I have to mention is the Artist's Library, in which four new volumes have recently appeared. Two of them, on Van Dyck, are written by Mr. Lionel Cust, who has published a large volume on the Flemish painter, and knows his subject well. He treats it adequately in these brief chapters, and at the same time gives too much the impression of a piece of clever hack work. Miss Frances C. Weale's Hubert and John Van Eyck is similarly thoroughgoing, and similarly innocent of the faintest spark of kindling emotion. The best of the recent publications in this series is Mr. Herbert P. Horne's Leonardo da Vinci, which is formed of a felicitous translation of Vasari's life of the painter, with interpolations by the English critic. It is a somewhat audacious performance, but Mr.

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1 Leonardo da Vinci. By Dr. GEORG GRONew York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1903. 2 Albrecht Dürer. By LINA ECKENSTEIN. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1903.

3 Millet. By ROMAIN ROLLAND. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1903.

The French Impressionists. By CAMILLE MAUCLAIR. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1903.

5 Thomas Gainsborough. By A. B. CHAM

Horne knows what he is about, and has brought some really serviceable ideas and facts to the completion of his unconventional task. In these books the full-page illustrations are always at the back, by themselves. The Leonardo plates are particularly welcome since they include some of his drawings.

Every series of popular handbooks on art that is published nowadays follows much the same editorial policy. One may differ from another in size and price, but all are alike in that all run to a sort of specialization. It is assumed that what is wanted by the public addressed is concise instruction on this or that famous man. The system has its merits and its drawbacks. It leads, for one thing, as in literary enterprises of a kindred nature, to the useless duplication by one publisher of projects undertaken by another. Furthermore, as the authors engaged are, as a rule, simply good journeymen, without anything very fresh or startling to communicate, safe but not in the least inspiring ciceroni, the ultimate results threaten to be more imposing in bulk than in quality, and we shall not improbably see many a pretty volume dismembered for the sake of its illustrations, by those who have found out the usefulness of a well-ordered scheme of scrapbooks. In the meantime these innumerable little manuals are fertilizing the soil, — one may cheerfully admit that without taking them too seriously, — and it is good to know, moreover, that the rule of brevity forced upon the writers of them spares us a lot of highfalutin.

But to whom is the student to go for general ideas, for the broader edification

BERLAIN. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1903.

6 Van Dyck. By LIONEL CUST. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1903.

7 Hubert and John Van Eyck. By FRANCES C. WEALE. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1903.

8 Leonardo da Vinci. By HERBERT P. HORNE. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1903.