18 AUGUST 1888, Page 24

Great Minds in Art. By William Tirebuck. (T. Fisher Unwin.)

—As Mr. Tirebuck aptly remarks in his introduction, the lives of great painters are made up of two phases, the biographical and the artistic ; the former being often the record of painful struggles. Velasquez's genius was restricted by his own success at the Court of Philip IV.; while Gustave Dore had to fight his way to oil- painting. Financially, it is true, Dore was the most successful of all painters. Mr. Tirebuck dwells with much feeling on the bio- graphical phase of the painters' lives ; and if his style is not what we should call scholarly, it at least has the merit of force and vividness.