DECORATIVE MOTIVES OF ORIENTAL ART. By Katherine M. Ball. (John
Lane. 52s. 6d.)—The authoress of this fascinating book supervises the art teaching in the San Francisco schools and has gained much help in her study of Oriental art from the many Chinese and Japanese scholars living in California. Her plan is to take the animals, real or fanciful, that are common motives in the painting and sculpture of the Far East, to detail the legends and folk-lore connected with them and the favourite representations of them, and to give many photographs—charmingly and helpfully arranged—of examples drawn from the most varied sources. She begins, of course, with the dragon, tiger, phoenix, unicorn and tortoise, all of which are most important, and works through the Oriental artist's Zoo down to the dragon- fly and the cricket. Every collector of Chinese porcelain or bronzes or Japanese prints knows the part that animal motives play in the decorative schemes, and Miss Ball's delightful book brings out the significance of these things. From the purely artistic standpoint, too, her illustrations are of high value. The apparent simplicity of Oriental paintings, for instance, conceals a technical accomplishment that is rare in the West to-day.
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