Art Books

CHAPTER I Venetian painting in its prime differs altogether in character from that of every other part of Italy. The Venetian is the most marked and recognisable of all the schools; its singularity is such that a novice in art can easily, in a miscellaneous collection, sort out the works belonging to it, and added to this unique character is the position it occupies in the domain of art. Venice alone... more...

PREFACE This volume is complementary to that dealing with the Italian side of the Adriatic, and follows much the same lines. It has not been thought necessary to repeat what appeared there about the sea itself, but some further details on the subject have been added in an introductory chapter. The concluding chapter treats of the influence which the two coasts exerted on each other, and contains some... more...

The Sculpture and Mural Decorations "In this fair world of dreams and vagary,Where all is weak and clothed in failing forms,Where skies and trees and beauties speak of change,And always wear a garb that's like our minds,We hear a cry from those who are aboutAnd from within we hear a quiet voiceThat drives us on to do, and do, and do." The persistent necessity for creation is strikingly... more...

EARLY ITALIAN ART—GIOTTO, 1276-1337—ANDREA PISANO. 1280-1345—ORCAGNA, 1315-1376 GHIBERTI, 1381-1455—MASACCIO, 1402-1428 OR 1429—FRA ANGELICO, 1387-1455. A pencil and paper, a box of colours, and a scrap-book, form so often a child's favourite toys that one might expect that a very large portion of men and women would prove painters. But, as we grow in years and knowledge, the discrepancy... more...

THE MIND OF THE ARTIST An able painter by his power of penetration into the mysteries of his art is usually an able critic. Alfred Stevens. The Belgian painter, not the English sculptor. Art, like love, excludes all competition, and absorbs the man. Fuseli. A good painter has two chief objects to paint, namely, man, and the intention of his soul. The first is easy, the second difficult, because he has... more...

Introduction No more accurate account of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition has been given than one that was forced from the lips of a charming Eastern woman of culture. Walking one evening in the Fine Arts colonnade, while the illumination from distant searchlights accented the glory of Maybeck's masterpiece, and lit up the half-domes and arches across the lagoon, she exclaimed to her... more...

I THE PRECURSORS OF IMPRESSIONISM—THE BEGINNING OF THIS MOVEMENT AND THE ORIGIN OF ITS NAME   It will be beyond the scope of this volume to give a complete history of French Impressionism, and to include all the attractive details to which it might lead, as regards the movement itself and the very curious epoch during which its evolution has taken place. The proportions of this book confine its aim... more...

A Fourteenth Century Legend Friar Bacon, reading one day of the many conquests of England, bethought himself how he might keep it hereafter from the like conquests and so make himself famous to all posterity. This (after great study) he found could be no way so well done as one; which was to make a head of brass, and if he could make this head to speak (and hear it when it spoke) then might he be able... more...

DIARY OF AN ENNUYÉE. Calais, June 21.—What young lady, travelling for the first time on the Continent, does not write a "Diary?" No sooner have we slept on the shores of France—no sooner are we seated in the gay salon at Dessin's, than we call, like Biddy Fudge, for "French pens and French ink," and forth steps from its case the morocco-bound diary, regularly ruled and paged,... more...

CHAPTER I.Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew, and Phoenician Dancing. The Ritual Dance of Egypt. Dancing Examples from Tomb of Ur-ari-en-Ptah, 6th Dynasty, British Museum. Description of Dancing from Sir G. Wilkinson; of the Egyptian Pipes and Hieroglyphics of Dancing, &c. Phoenician Round Dances, from a Limestone Group found at Cyprus, and Bronze Patera from Idalium, Cyprus.In this work it is not necessary... more...