Botticsiti. By Ernst Steinmann. Translated by Campbell D o d gss a (H. Grevel.
4s.)—As far as it goes, this monograph is pleasantly written and sensible. The fault we have to find withthe book with so many
more of its class, is that we are , as told so much more about the painter than the paintings. These last are treated too much as mere indexes to the character of the . Although the man was a very interesting one, his pictures are of far more value to us than his personal history. Supposing nothing whatever were known about the man Botticelli, the loss to the world would not be irreparable or even considerable. But eliminate the whole of his painting and the loss to art is immense. This painter is completely original; if he had not existed a whole phase of beauty of sentiment, of form and colour, would have been denied us. The writer on Botticelli who will help us most is he who examines and explains the artist's attitude towards problems of colour, line, and composition and technique, for it is in these things that the wonderful originedity and poetry of the man were manifested.
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