The Art Journal, 1890. (Virtue and Co.) —This, the latest
yearly volume of the oldest of the English art magazines, is equal to the tradition left by its predecessors. Of the twelve plate illus- trations, we prefer a photogravure, " Bideford Sands," after a picture by F. Bourdillon ; next to this we should place the steel engraving—not a wholly extinct product, we are glad to see- " Non Angli sed Angeli," by Mr. J. C. Armytage, after Keeley Halswelle. The scene is admirably given by the painter, and the engraver has done his work very well. We may also mention an original etching from Nature by Mr. Percy Robertson, " Win- chester College from the Meadows." The photogravure, after Mr. Dudley Hardy, "Sans Asile," a dismal group of sleepers by one of the Trafalgar Square lions, is very powerful. The miscel- laneous contents of the volume are as varied and as interesting as usual. The notice of Robert Browning, with the accompanying portraits, one of Browning in early manhood, another of him not long before his death, and one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, may be specially mentioned. Mr. C. Lewis Hind, who contributes the paper, tells a curious story of the poet declaiming " The Ride to Ghent" into a phonograph, and exclaiming, when his memory failed him, " Good gralious ! I've forgotten the rest !" an exclama- tion, of course, perpetuated with the rest. Well may Mr. Hind call this an "eerie possession." To future generations these strangely surviving words of the dead will be precious ; but to friends that remain they will be too pathetic. The " Studios of Painters " form an interesting series of articles. Other notable articles are " Riverside Inns," a series of " Biographies of Artists," and a comparison of Cambridge with Oxford as a home of the pic- turesque. Mr. Fulleylove gives the preference, we see, to Cam- bridge; his is a most weighty opinion, but it will hardly settle the controversy.
Previous page
