The Wallace and Tate Galleries. By Estelle Ross. "The Treasure-House
Series." (Wells Gardner, Darton, and Co. 2s. 6d.
net.)—This book aims at being a guide for those who know little about pictures. We cannot help hoping that it may be kept out of the hands of the inexperienced, for the author's attitude towards pictures is, we bold, a wrong one. Instead of trying to impress upon people the special magic and poetry of the painter's art, little but the incidents depicted in the pictures are dwelt upon, and vague generalities and anecdotes make up the information given about the painters. In the case of the account of the Tate Gallery nothing could be more misleading to an unformed taste than the indiscriminate praise bestowed equally
upon Herkomer and Watts, Dicksee and Furse.--Another volume of this series dealing with the National Gallery, by Alice Corkran,
is more sensible in its attitude towards pictures. But we are bound to note that no attempt is made to explain the special standpoint of the painter. For instance, there is a very sym-
pathetic short account of Michelangelo ; but from it we only gather that this artist was intellectual, unresting, and religious. It is no use to say that we must try to feel a picture through the
artist's own temperament, and never to explain to the novice that a painter can only express himself by purely artistic qualities.
To understand an artist we must endeavour to realise his special treatment of form, colour, and composition. A soul cannot be perceived—at least on this earth—without its body.
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