✓ C HARVARD UNIVERSITY UBRARY CHISWICK PRESS-CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. AUTHOR'S NOTE N this richly illustrated volume an attempt has been made, it is hoped successfully, to give characteristic examples of the work of fifty representative painters of the nineteenth century, which has been so remarkably prolific in original art work. As will be readily understood, the task of selection has presented many difficulties, and it has in the end been found necessary to reserve for a future series the names of many men who might justly have claimed a place. It must, however, be borne in mind that it is not always the finest work of a master which will most successfully bear the test of translation into black and white. The more subtle the charm of colour, the more evanescent does it prove to be, and for this reason the work chosen has been, as far as possible, that to which justice could best be done. In the brief literary notices accompanying the reproductions, the aim of the author has been to combine with an account of the leading facts of the art career of each master an analysis of the principles controlling that career and of the qualities setting his work apart from that of any of his contemporaries. The book may, therefore, perhaps claim to be something of an epitome of the history of painting in the nineteenth century. It is alike retrospective and prophetic, dealing with the work of the past and the tendencies of the future. It begins with Turner and ends with Segantini, two men different indeed in character, in associations, and in aim, but akin to each other in their reverent worship of nature. Between these two truly representative masters are passed in review one group after another of those who, during the last hundred years, have developed the art of painting, and restored it to its old proud position as one of the most refining and ennobling of intellectual influences. NANCY BELL. |