Current Literature
LIFE AND ART IN PHOTOGRAPH These volumeg of 'photographs (The Italian: Renaissance, edited by A. K. Wickham' The Polar, Regions, edited by J. AL Scott ; A Book of _Dogs—Chatto and Windus, 5s. each) might be specially designed for the doctor's or the dentist's waiting-room, to soften those bitter moments of expectation, when the mind is too distracted to read, when Punch seems more stupid than usual and the society events in the Taller remote and unimportant. No doubt when the series is com- plete these volumes will cater for every taste, but even in the three already published there is food for many stomachs. The historically, or aesthetically minded can learn much with little effort from Me. Wickham's illustrations of the Italian Renaissance. Those who feel discontented with their present lot can take a short tour in the Arctic in the company of Mr. Scott, and may either be drugged by the beauty of the scenes shown or so horrified by the discomforts which the explorers are evidently undergoing that return to the world of reality will be a pleasure. And those whose outlets for affection are limited can in imagination pat a more splendid series of the noblest dogs than they are ever likely to meet in real life. The level of photography and reproduction is high in all three volumes. In one or two plates in the dog volume there are disagreeable traces of touching up, but some of the details of heads are exceptionally successful. The Polar Regions offer a splendid opportunity of which the photographers, have taken full advantage, and there is one startling view looking out of an ice cave. The problem facing Mr. Wickham in pro- ducing the volume on the Italian Renaissance was more com- plicated than that facing the editors of the other two volumes. He has aimed at giving a representative photographic anthology of that vast movement, and given his limitations of space it would have been almost impossible to do it better. His choice of subjects is discriminating and few important groups of artists are ignored. He has resisted the temptation to increase the number of illustrations at the expense of size, and it is greatly to his credit that all the plates are full-page. They are also well reproduced. In an introduction of about ten pages he manages to give a clear idea of the main develop- ment of Renaissance art in Italy, though it is perhaps a pity that nearly one of these ten pages should be devoted to an attack on modern painting and criticism which is not directly relevant to the matter in hand.
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