The Great Artists : Horace Vernet and Paul Delaroohe. By
.J. R. Rees. (S. Low and Co.)—Biographies of great artists *re not easy to write or to criticise. Some estimate of the true value of the works cf the several painters, sculptors, or architects included in these Lives is expected. But how difficult it is for the different writers of such a series as the present to agree, even as to the general basis of their criticism ! And, more- over, to write such biographies thoroughly well involves the possession of so many literary gifts! What accuracy, what patience, what appreciation of times and circumstances and character, and what :skill in selection and construction are requisite, in order to present a portrait at once trustworthy, just, and sympathetic. If we do not recognise all the features of our ideal in these brief histories of the life and labours of Vernet and Delaroohe, still we do find in them pleasant narratives, easy to read and to follow. The illustrations do not afford satisfactory examples of the pictures which they attempt to reproduce. And the estimates of the artistic position of their painters require revision. Why, for example, is it said of Dela- roche (p. 59) that he was not inspired, had no genius, no creative power, almost no invention ; and then, a little farther on (p. 71), we are assured that in this artist's " Hemicycle," " the glory of divine art in human form has never been more fully illustrated" ?
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