FINE ARTS.
PRUNE'S ORIENTAL ALBUM.
M. PRIME is a French artist who has traversed Egypt and the upper re- gions of the Nile, and a magnificent volume has been drawn from his rich portfolio.* The book is printed on paper of very large size; it con- tains thirty lithographic drawings, coloured after the artist; and let into the text are thirty-five wood-cuts, of considerable size and much beauty. The lithographs exhibit the different races and classes of the Nilotic re- gion, the large scale of the figures permitting a very full and minute elf- position of character and costume; the backgrounds setting forth Egyptian and Nubian scenery, the foregrounds showing the furniture and implements of the land. The wood-cuts supply further insight into the general aspect of the towns, the groups of people, the house architecture, and the furni- ture. Mr. St. John's letterpress is intended merely for such current ex- planation as may accompany the turning over of the prints: it is written with the clear style of an accomplished pen, and with the distinctness of knowledge gathered on the spot.
M. Prisse is a very skilful draughtsman: his works are not, as the illus- trations of travels too often are, mere diagrams, but they reproduce to the sight the forms as they appear in life. The lithographic copyist has be- stowed commensurate pains and skill on the prints, and has very happily caught the style of his original. The air of life, the force of effect, the brilliant but harmonious colouring, render the prints among the very finest works of their kind.
The wood-cuts, we think, might furnish a useful lesson to English work- men in the same branch of art. Our draughtsmen are too apt to forget ihat wood is not copper, and to strain at producing from the grained vege- table the same effects as they can from the dense metal. Now, wood is capable of producing an effect peculiar to itself-a smart, bright, distinct Wein, inseparable perhaps from some degree of flatness, but still very forcible and agreeable. In the attempt to imitate copperplate, our draughts- men too commonly sacrifice that which they really can get out of the wood, and produce nothing but a muddy, hazy, blotted daub, as indistinct as objects seen in a camera obscure, but yet retaining the harshness and stiffness of wood. On the other hand, some of our draughtsmen reduce wood-drawing to a merely mechanical congeries of lines. In the work be- fore us, both errors are avoided. There are elaborate effects, yet the means are simple. There is no needless multiplication or crossing of lines; but the effect is obtained by the skilful and nice gradation of force in the comparatively few and simple lines that are employed. In the more extended views you have the broad and general aspect, yet with the main outlines distinctly marked. In the covered balcony at page 7, a most elaborate specimen of carved wood-work is portrayed with the minuteness and distinctness of the camera lucida; and yet a very broad and soft effect of shading is produced, with the simplest combination of lines, by the skil- ful use of gradation.
A book of this kind is not only entertaining as an ornament for the drawingroom-table-not only interesting as a specimen of book-work in the cultivation of art-but is most valuable as supplying information which no writing, even by the most graphic hand, can convey. Written descrip Lion is vague, and is inevitably eked out by epithets, which are always equivocal or doubtful: the skilful artist defines objects with the lucidity of sunlight, and needs no epithets. But the aspect and make of things are essential elements for a true judgment. The politician, for example, will derive valuable information, in the most restricted and utilitarian sense of the word, from seeing the soldiers and the peasantry of Egypt paraded be- fore him, as they are by M. Prisse. The influence of such a book on the mind is analogous to that of travelling: it extends our knowledge of differ- ent modes of existence, and helps us to limit our category of necessaries. To possess such a work, therefore, is a luxury which counteracts the influ- ence of luxury; though, indeed, to many it will furnish materials much more substantially useful than any mere luxury.
* Oriental Album. Characters, Costumes, and Modes of Life in the Valley of the Nile. Illustrated from Designs taken on the spot, by E. Prisse. With Descriptive Letterpress, by James Augustus St. John, Author of " Egypt and Mohammed All," and " Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece." London : James Madden.
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