VANDYCK AND HA.LS.* Tuis is one of the series of
biographies which are still in course of publication by Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. Their aim is to record in as simple and explicit a manner as possible the main points of the lives of famous artists, and to supply suffi- cient comment upon their chief works to give a clear idea as to the style and merit of the painter's work. The illustrations, which form a principal feature of each volume, do not pretend, at least so we suppose, to be works of art ; but are merely ex- planatory of the text, giving with sufficient accuracy for that purpose the composition of the picture reproduced, and the main disposition of its masses of light and shade. It is, there- fore, unnecessary for us to enter into detailed comment upon these woodcuts, which, considering the number given and the price at which the book is published, are perhaps as good as we could fairly expect.
With regard, then, to the way in which the author of this especial number of the series has accomplished his work. Here, too, we must write our criticism under strict limitations,—under those, namely, set down by Mr. Percy Head himself in his preface, wherein he says that he is " a writer on art-history, who neither claims to have elicited new facts, nor cleared up old errors by independent research." Nor does he venture " to imagine that he can contribute much that is valuable to the mass of (esthetic literature." It is evident, then, that we must not blame an author of this kind for telling us that " Queen Anne is dead," for this is his special vocation ; nor must we expect from him any specially vital criticism, for such lie imagines to be beyond his province. Indeed, if we find fault with him on these points, it can only be on the ground that having neither elicited new facts nor put old ones in a new light, he should have considered it well to write at all. We are, however, quite inclined to admit the plea made by the author in the following portions of his preface to the one we have quoted, in which he sets forth that the main authorities on Vandyck's life are generally expensive in price and foreign in language, and that there is on that account plenty of room for one who sets forth the plain facts of the painter's life, and enumerates his principal works in a tongue which is " uuderstanded of the people."
This, Mr. Head does clearly, and does well. His English is clear without being didactic, and pleasant without being fine. If his language is not picturesque, it is still less awkward ; if he does not give us much, or indeed any new matter, he arranges the old concisely and consecutively ; if his criticisms are common-place, there are at least very few of them, and they are inoffensive, even when they are erroneous. For instance, when he tells us that Vandyck is the second portrait-painter in the world, we may, perhaps, smile a little frankly, remembering a few men like Tintoretto and Bordone, Velasquez and Rembrandt and Holbein, and a dozen or two more of a lesser note, whom still we should place a long way above the artist in ques- tion ; but it is always excusable for an author or a cobbler to think there is "nothing like leather ;" and a certain amount of generous enthusiasm, even when it is pushed to the limits of extravagance, is a good rather than a bad thing in a biographical sketch. Of course, as a matter of fact, in all the real essentials of portraiture, the " dissolute dog " of a Franz Hals, who forms the second subject of this work, was superior to Vandyck, who, though a great artist, was too "cumbered with much serving" and Court patronage to produce really genuine work. He had to be plea- sant, and the result is that three-fourths of his portraits are remarkable for little save the elegance of the sitter's attitude, and his rare skill in disposing the accessories of the background. To return to Mr. Head. The one thing he does not tell us in his preface, and the fact that it would be most [interesting to know, is, whether the remarks and descriptions of the Vandyck pictures here given are written after inspection of the works in question, or are only repetitions from other writers, or from ex- amination of woodcuts. It seems to us that the one vitally necessary thing for a writer upon an artist, who talks at all about his works, is to have studied the works themselves care- fully, and of such study we confess that we see in Mr. Head's bio- graphy no traces. Similar remarks to those we have made upon the life of Vandyck apply to the sketch (under twenty pages) of Franz Hals. The main incidents of his life, his birth at Ant- werp, his first and second marriages, his fine for beating his
• Vandyek and Rat's. By P. Head. London : Sampson Low and Co.
wife, his dissolute habits, long life, and great local reputation, —all these are told plainly and clearly. Comment, too, of a cer- tain kind, is made upon his work, of which we extract the description of his style. If it leaves our readers no wiser than before, it will iu that vary little from most art criticism of the present day :—
" Franz Haig' style declares itself especially in the subordination of colouring to the dominant tone. He fixes his subjects as he meets them in life,—in ordinary daylight, not in extravagant or fantastic chiaroscuro. lle chooses and regulates his lights with regard to the necessary colouring of the scene represented, with a skill that at once proclaims him master of his craft. Occasionally he allows him- self to use a weaker daylight, which permits the local colour a little assertion ; but if he does so, it is always with due regard to the gradations of shade. With all the brilliancy of colour he permitted himself in his military pieces, ho still arranged his tints with the greatest care, and kept the flesh tones under ; he encourages the spiritual to dominate the material, allows the dress only just what is needed to make its wearer understood, determines the arrangement of his pictures by the local colouring, and concentrates his interest entirely upon the heads, as the centre of intelligence, and the hands, as subsidiary interpreters of character."
It would be interesting, had we space, to put the con- tradictory passages iu the criticism into clearer promin- ence,—to ask, for instance, how in a picture in which the colouring is subdued to the dominant tone, the arrange- ment can be determined by local colouring ; how interest is concentrated on the face, and yet the flesh tones are kept under ; how the light is chosen and regulated, and yet is "ordi- nary daylight." But we must leave our readers to determine these somewhat subtle questions at their leisure ; when the Yankee puzzle of Fifteen has lost its novelty, the above problem may perhaps afford some amusement for a leisure hour. The truth is, that Mr. Bead's book, clear and simple though it be, does not go quite far enough. A mere account of the dates, incidents, and pictures painted by an artist, does not give the information needed in a work of this kind. What is wanted is a little compre- hension of the place of the artist with regard to other great artists of his own, of earlier, and subsequent times, and a clear determination of the qualities which make his work great and individual. Nothing of this do we find in the volume before us.
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