Shorter Notices American Primitive Painting. By Jean Lipman. (Milford. 3os.)
This delightful volume, which comes from the Oxford University Press, New York, is the first book to give a comprehensive account, accompanied with a great many attractive illustrations in colou and black and white, of American painters working in New England and Pennsylvania between 1790 and 1875. Their work is astonish ingly good and frequently reminds us of the douanier Rousseau and other more recent European artists. The fact is that these picture are the work of craftsmen who were sign, coach and house painters and when in their leisure they painted for their own enjoyment they had \ a good naivety and freshness of vision which the more sophisticated painters on this side of the Atlantic had lost. As usual, the earlier examples are much the best, and such pictures as (9) "Baby in Red High Chair," c. 179o, (r7) "Frederic and Harriet Parker," c. 1815, (21) "Sailor," early nineteenth century, (25) " Cap Baker" are astonishing in their simplicity and directness. A water colour such as (3o) " The York Family at Home " rivals Dufy a his best, and some of the later landscapes such as (43) "Runawa Horse," (47) " View of the Castle of Montgomery," (50) " Darky- town," (55) "Winter in the Country" are masterpieces of corn position. Altogether this is one of the most fascinating of recent] published art books.
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