THE HISTORY OF TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. By Alexander Finberg. With
a new Catalogue Raisonne. (Benn. £5 58. net.) Apart from the benefit that it will render to collectors, this book should also help to awaken interest in a much neglected aspect of Turner's genius which has been overshadowed by the undue glamour caused by his sunsets. Helped by the absence of colour in the drawings, etchings and engravings, we are more able to appreciate Turner's vital, constructive faculty exemplified in such plates as numbers 9,'.36 and 54, to mention only a few. But the variety of his work is astonishing. It is interesting to notice how subtly he has felt the medium in which he was working, so that the engravings become not merely copies of the drawings but new expressions of his creative force. Although 'he did not engrave the Majority of the plates himself, Turner had, nevertheless,' complete supervisory control over the work, and in most cases actually did r.eteli the plates- before the craftsmen started work upon them. We cart, therefore, look:upon the craftsmen as very efficient and obedient machines, and safely give to Turner full credit for the conception of the engravings. The author's name is a sufficient guarantee that the difficult and serious task of writing The History of the Liber Studioruni and producing a new catalogue raisonni of all the published and unpublished plates has been treated with the thoroughness, reliability and aesthetic appreciation that it demanded.
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