PEASANT ART IN EUROPE. By H. C. Bossert.
44 pp. 132 plates. (Ernest Berm. £9 9s.)—If peasant is now dead, as Dr- Bossert declares, his book is an cloy and impressive obituary. Upwards of two thousand speci are here reproduced, most of them in colour, and they proi an admirable summary of European folk-art in ernbroid wood, metal and pottery. Peasant art drew its decorative the from local tradition, itself formed by direct contact between craftsman and his material, through the incentives of customs, civil _and religious* with which he was immedid in touch. The " style-art " which displaced it was, on contrary, an affair of mere design—often exotic and imp priate—imposed on the craftsmao and his material by dictates of fashion. The craftsman himself has now pa and a mechanical age is doubtless growing new tradi though we do not yet call its productions art. It is a baekw looking sentimentalism that would revive peasant art tai the economic and cultural conditions that produced it, tho this book can be thoroughly recommended as a fund suggestions for all interested in handicraft. It is regrctta that English work forms so small a proportion of the ash
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