NOTABLE BOOKS.
EARLY !CHINESE BRONZES. By Albert J. .Koop. (Berm. £5 5s. net.) OVER four thousand years ago, before the Stone Age had come to an end in Europe, a Chinese emperor had the tribute in bronze from his .provinces cast as huge cauldrons ; and the making of bronze ornaments and utensils has been constantly practised in China-through at`least those four thousand years. Mr. Koop has a long period to illustrate, though he cannot go back to the earliest days of bronze-casting in China. Messrs. Been have given him a good long book to illustrate specimens in, and they have magnificently reproduced the illustrations he chose. When designs are cast, it seems, there can never be the care taken over them, and the individuality givers to them, that a craftsman gives to designs that he cuts out or draws : he has not quite the same intimacy with his material ; he does not-spend quite so much love upon it. And so it is not prin- cipally for beauty of design that Chinese bronzes are most notable ; it is more often for the intricacy or curiosity of the design. There are, however, a few very pleasing and quite plain castings illustrated ; and it must make us regret, when we turn from the book to 'look at modern pails, scuttles, mirrors, bells, pans, candlesticks, and boxes, that so many commercial designers are oblivious to the beauties of plain form and -shave no feeling for that most justifiable branch of " abstract art," the devi4ing of beautifully proportioned household goods. Horror rot. 'delight may dwell -in the mere proportions of a ilowerlboWL 'But for the most part it is the ornament and • not `the -form of a' Chinese bronze that holds
our interest. Mr. Koop gives a full description of each of ' his plates, and attempts to fix an approximate date for the specimens from their type and from the quality of their patination.
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