Where Art Begins. By Hume Nisbet. (Chatto and Windus.)— "
Art," Mr. Nisbet asserts, "permeates the entire body of humanity, from the fiesh-devouring savage to the asphodel-adoring testhetic, in a greater or less degree, according to the sanitary conditions of their lives." Also, "I have come to the conclusion that, unless man can afford to step aside from the rushing stream of competi- tion, and the thousand excitements which hurry us along in a mad race with every nerve on the strain, he cannot possibly be a vegetarian, or, in its highest sense, a true artist." But a photo- grapher may. He is the "modern troubadour," he catches the " God-beam " on faces, his art "joins hands with my own work—painting—in the broad sense of the word, which, I may safely assert, is taking it nearly all round." Mr. Nisbet, in the broad sense of the word, takes it nearly all round, we may almost safely assert. Thus he deals with graining. "Alma Tadema has shown how an artist can imitate marble in his Roman master- pieces, by his care and tender manipulation. He has raised the art of the grainer to a very lofty pedestal indeed." The "grand master grainer of the age" obtains this success because, unlike the producer of the "show-panel," he "never permits his imagination to run away with him," for "the grainer who desires to be remem- bered, must possess himself with the true diffidence of the un- compromising realist." Thus equipped "he may take his seat amongst those immortals who painted fruit to deceive the birds ; and whatever any other critic may say against it, I hold that he is a great and a true painter."
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