Art for Art's Sake. By John C. Van Dyke. (Sampson
Low and Co.)—Mr. Van Dyke is very good reading indeed, and withal remarkably Clear and precise in explaining much that shapes itself but hazily in the brain of those interested in art. The .chapters are printed lectures, and to this, doubtless, we owe their ease and force of illustration. The author says a deliverance of his own opinion, however different to others, may help some to realise their own views on the subject ; and of this there is no doubt. A man unable to put is own idea into shape or words, on seeing the opposite literally stated, is often able to give expression to his own view of the matter. Mr. Van Dyke says that the appreciation of natural beauty in landscape, unassoeiated with humanity, is beginning to be appreciated. Nevertheless a young painter is taught, it seems to us, that the highest art is to embody human associations in his work. Mr. Ruskin has brought Ms great authority to bear on this point, and many poets refuse to recognise natural beauty separated from human association, so that the artist who paints nature alone has much to overcome. Mr. Van Dyke mentions everybody but Turner, will not allow him to be one of the groat colourists, nor does he mention him in speaking of skill with texture, and only once or twice in discussing the technicality of perspective. Why is the? Was not Turner skilful with his paints, was he not a colourist, was he not acquainted with some of the secrets of sunlight and stOrial perspective ? It is foolish to ignore an artist merely after telling us that the greatest triumph of the artist is to give us nature as he sees it, so that the picture is made up of nature and the man. Did not Turner fulfil this condition ? Again, in speaking of textures, surfaces, and brushwork, and quoting a remark of Sir Joshua Reynold's, "that Steen's style might become the design of Raphael," he says the one was a great artist, the other a fine painter. Surely, if the Dutchman was more skilful with his brush, nobility of conception and design belongs to art as much as skill with the brush, and fulfils the demands of art even "better, in that the spectator carries away from a noble concep- tion a far more lasting impression.
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