CURRENT LITERAT U_RE.
ART-BOOKS.
Sate Greenaway. By M. H. Spielmann and G. S. Layard. (A. and t. Black. 20s.)—This is a sympathetic biography, and as we read it is impossible not to be charmed by the character of Kate Greenaway. She was so gentle, affectionate, humorous, and sentimental. Another thing that makes the volume attractive is the correspondence with Ruskin, a number of whose letters are given. Ruskin had a deep admiration for the art of Kate Greenaway, though he was by no means blind to her deficiencies. She was constantly urged by him to draw more from Nature, and to draw children as they are and not always the ideals of a rather, sentimental imagination. Ruskin does not seem to have kept many of the letters written in reply to his. This is unfor- tunate, for, to judge by a few of those that have been preserved, Kate Greenaway wrote excellent letters, and even argued with the Professor, although in the background there was always adora- tion for his genius and judgment. Some of the most spontaneous of the drawings of children reproduced in the present volume are little sketches taken from these letters. Those children often have more individual life than their elaborately finished brothers and sisters in the water-colour drawings. The influence orKate Greenaway was widespread. Not only did England and America eagerly buy her children's books, but France and Ger- many also came under her sway. La Vie de Paris wrote about "the graceful mode of Greenawisme," and the Nene Preis Presse declared that she had reformed children's dress. This last is certainly true, for the fashions of childhood still reflect her style. The children of Kate Greenaway were ideal ; she never in her finished work represented them as they would appear or act in everyday life, though a pencil study (p. 276) shows how firm her grip of reality could be. The costume she invented gives them feeling of remoteness from to-day. But so keen was the artist's sympathy with childhood, that children themselves recognise tindred spirits in the little people of the pictures. In the book before us the work of telling the story of Kate Greenaway's life has been well done. Wherever possible the character is developed by letters from the subject of the book herself and from her Mends. At the same time, comments, criticisms, and bio- graphical details are judiciously added. The book has a great numbei of illustrations, in which the delicate colouring of the artist is hopelessly vulgarised by the three-colour process.
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