Etchings of Venice. By Ernest George. (The Fine Art Society.)
—Mr. Ernest George's merits as an etcher are well known, and the mention of his name and of the subject on which he has employed his skill will be a sufficient recommendation of his work. The etchinge are twelve in number, and are prefaced and accompanied by a slight descriptive letterpress. Mr. George does not attempt " landscapes " of Venice. The nearest approach to a subject of this kind is "The Dogana and Church of Santa Maria della Salute." Bridges furnish favourite themes for his tool, and there arc two studies of fishing-boats, which are as effective as they could be expected to be without colour ; and it is in the boats, as he re- marks, that Venetian life, mostly modernised into commonplace, still retains something of its old picturesqueness. None of the etchings, to our mind, surpasses that of the San Geremia, where we get the marble façade of the church, and a palace with a campanile rising boldly behind.
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