Some Books of the Week
Wrrii the promise of an Exhibition of Italian Art in London this winter, Messrs. Jack's sumptuous volume on Italian Painting (42s.) comes at an appropriate moment. The authors are Messrs. P. G. Konody and R. H. Wilenski. Their theme is the art of Italy from the symbolic and impressionistic paintings of the Catacombs, through the Middle Ages to St. Francis, and from him to the High Renaissance summer of the "three immortal flowers" (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael), passing then to the Venetian masters, and finally to the sophistication of Guido Rem and the sombre genius of Caravaggio. The authors disclaim any intention of writing a complete history : they have given us a series of essays to show how art is bound up with civilization. The colour illustrations, of which there are forty-eight, are well repro- duced, but a few more references to them in the text would have facilitated their intelligent study. The pictures chosen for illustration are a matter of individual taste. If we regret the absence of Botticelli's "Primavera," we have his " Venus" : if Masaccio's frescoes in the Carmine are not here, we can find the adorable Annunciation ascribed by the authors to Simone Martini alone—according to them his brother-in-law, Memmi, was only an assistant. And when we are told that nothing in Italian Art surpasses in grandeur and concentration certain frescoes of Piero dei Franceschi, we feel it is a pity that Messrs. Jack have not let us see these masterpieces in distant Arezzo. But for the text we have nothing but praise. Whether Giotto did or did not paint the frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi, and whether Leonardo travelled to Armenia or remained darkly in Florence, must remain matters of opinion : the authors express their views on many subjects, but never lose sight of their main purpose, which is to tell the story of the budding of the mind of Europe in the City of the Lilies, and its flowering in Papal Rome. It is a high theme, which the authors sustain with dignity and balance.
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