Tax ILLUSTRATED Masaziliss.—A review of the recent numbers of the
English illustrated monthlies, reveals certain changes_ The Portfolio, as already announced, has altered its form, and has given up competing with the three other magazines, that combine a number of articles on art, old and new, with a chronicle of events. In place of this a separate treatise in 8vo size is issued each month, dealing with a single subject. The recent numbers have dealt with Bastien Lepage (Miss Cartwright), Frederick Walker (Mr. Claude Phillips), and Rossetti (Mr. F. J. Stephens). The last treatise is one testimony more to the extraordinary fascination exercised by Rossetti on the imagination of his time ; a fascination that writer after writer attempts to grapple with, going over what is now familiar ground in the events and cIrcumstances of the life. Mr. Stephens, of course, has a more intimate knowledge of the facts than most men, seeing that he was a member of the P. R. B. Some of the illustrations are new and extremely beautiful. Of the three other periodicals of the same type, the Magazine of Art and the Studio have raised their price slightly, thus coming nearly level with the Art Journal ; and at the same time have added new features in the form of plates and lithographs. All these periodicals play a difficult part in their attempt to give for a small price illustrations and text that will please the multitude and pay, and at the same time an occasional article or repro- duction that is interesting to artists. Both the Art Journal and the Magazine of Art have in recent numbers contained notices with reproductions of collections of paintings. Mr. Robert Walker, for the former, has dealt with private collections in the West of Scotland. Mr. Armstrong, for the latter, has described the pictures which Mr. Henry Tate proposes to give to the nation. More interesting to scholars are articles of another type, such as Mr. Claude Phillips' notice of the collection of old Italian pictures at the New Gallery. Articles like this mark the rise of an interest in questions of connoisseurship, and the leader of that branch of study, Dr. Richter, contributed to the Art Journal a short notice of the same exhibition, and has now begun a series discussing the attribution of paintings to Italian Masters in the National Gallery. In the June number he deals with the Virgin and Child and St. John of Leonardo da Vinci, arguing that it is a school copy of the Vierge aux Rochers of the Louvre, and supporting his thesis by documentary and internal evidence. The Studio takes a more special line, addressing itself to those who practise the decorative arts, but including notices and occasional reproductions of modern painting and sculpture. In its new series of lithographs, one by Mr. Whistler has been included, and its illustrated articles on the technique of that art, and of many others, do good service to the student and amateur. The May number includes an interesting article on Japanese sketches from Nature, by Mr. F. Dillon. The English Illus- trated has ceased to be associated with the artists of the decorative revival, and is now of the type of the Strand Magazine, with journalistic sketches and illustrations. The three chief American illustrated monthlies, the Century, Harper, and Scribner, continue to supply an extraordinary mixture of topics and illustrations. Stories, archreological and scientific articles, history, criticism of the arts, travel, Scc., make up the numbers, and the illustrations range from admirable wood- engravings after great pictures, or reproductions of sketches by living artists, to ordinary journalistic illustration and photo- graphic documents. In the Century, Mr. Timothy Cole has turned from reproducing Italian pictures, and is now engaged in a series of Dutch. A modern artist is .well illustrated in the Jane number,—viz., M. Boutet de Monvel, some of whose drawings and paintings have been seen at English exhibitions, but whose designs for children's books, somewhat in the manner of Mr. Crane and Miss Greenaway, are not so familiar. The April number of Harper was made interesting by Mr. Abbey's re- sumption of his Shakespearian series,—this time the Winter's Tale. In Scribner, Mr. Hamerton is month by month giving examples of contemporary art. In January, Manet's "Le Fifre" was reproduced to illustrate a reference to that artist. In February appeared a richly illustrated notice of Sir Edward Burne-Jones by Mr. Monkhouse. An article, illustrated by photo- graphs, on "The Devils of Notre Dame," by Mr. T. A. Cook,. supplements Mr. Pennell's drawinIss of the same grotesques.
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