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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd December 1854, Edition Country of 2, Page 19, SALE OF CTWTEN JONES' ILLUMINATED WOEKS....

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      Dj3cbm3jeb, 2, 1854.] The L E A D E H". ...

      DJ 3 CBM 3 JEB , 2 , 1854 . ] THE L E A D E H " . IM 7 "

      Books- On Ouh Tabios. ] A. Eoppfar. Hist...

      BOOKS- ON OUH TABIOS . A . Eoppfar . History of British Mosses , comprising a General Accowat of their . Structure ^ Fructification , Arrangement , and General Distribution . By Robert M . Stark . Lovell Refeve . B & pular British'Conckology , aJFamiliav History of the . Molluscs < inhabiting the . British Isles * . By George Bi-ettibngham Sowerby , F . L . S . Lovell Reeve . First- Steps iiv . Economic Botany , for the , Use of Students ; being am , Abridgment of Popular Economic Botany . By Tlomas Croxen Archer ; Lovell , Reeve . TJtk-Colonial Almanack for the Year 1855 . Adam and Charles Black . Sonnets of Cambridge Life . By William Kind , M . A . M & cimllan and Co . Evidences as to the Religious Working of the Common Schools in , the JState of Massachusetts , vsith a Preface . By the Hon . Edward Twisleton , late Chief Commissioner of Poor-laws in Ireland . James RidgwaT . The Quiet Heart . By the Author of " Kattie Stewart . " William Blackwood and Sons . The ^ Certainty of Christianity .- o Sketch . By a Iiayman . Thomas Constable and Co , An Entirely New System of Corrugation , by whie 7 i the Principle of all the French Verbs can . be understood in a Jew Hours , with numerous Practical Examples . Second Edition . By Mons . Mariot de Beauvoisin . Effingham Wilson . The . Royal Gallery of Art , Ancient and Modern . Edited by S . C . Hall , F . S . A ., & e-( Part I . ) ' P . and D . ColnagM and Co Time and Truth Reconciling the Moral and . Religious World to Sliakspeare . W . Kent and Co . The Native Races of the Russian Empir e * By B . G . Latham , M . D ., F . R . S ., & c . Hippolyte Baillieie . Poetical WorJts of Geoffrey Chaucer ( annotated Edition of the English Poets ) . Edited by Robert Bell . John W . Parker and Son . The English 4 tyclopozdia r a New Dictionary of Universal Knowledge . Conducted by Charles Knight . Bradbury and Eva » s . Mazwal of Civil Law f 6 r the Use qf Schools , and more especially of Candidates for the Civil Service . Consisting of an Epitome in English of the Institutes of Justinian . By E . E . Humphreys , LL . D . Longman , Brown , Green , and Longmans ; A' Third Gallery of Portraits . By George Gilfillan . James Hogg . Literary Addresses delivered at various Popular Institutions . ( Second series . ) Kichard Griffin and Co . Four Yearstat the Court of Henry XIII . , Selection of Despatches written by the Venetian Ambassador , Sebastian Gvustinian .: arid addressed to the JSignory of Venice , Jan . L 2 , 1515 ,. i © July 26 , 1519 . Translated by Kawdon . Brown- 2 vols . Smith , Elder , and Co . A ? Ifiew , Practical , and Easy Method of Learning French , upon the System most usetl on the Continent , for the Study of Languages ; with Numerous Exercises avid Examples , Illustrative of , every Rule . By E . Husson . Simpkin , Marshall , and Co . A Practical Treatise on the Diseases peculiar to Women . Illustrated by Cases derived from Hospital and Private Practice . By Samuel Aswell , M . I > ., & c . £ 3 rd edition . ) Samuel Highley , A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Christianity . By Robert William Mackay , 31 . A . ( Chapman ' s Quarterly Series . } John Chapman . The- Newcomes : Memoirs of a rcix > st Respectable Family . Edited by Arthur Pendennis , Esq . Bradbury and Evans . The Martins of Grd Martin . By Charles Lever . No . 1 . Chapman and Sail . The Art Journal . No . LXXII . George Virtue and Co . Our Friend : a Monthly Miscellany . John Faiquhar Shaw , The Parlour Library ; Maurice Furnay ^ The Soldier of Fortune . By the Author of " Sir James Carew . " Thomas Hodgson . Tales of Flemish Life . By Hendrik Conscience . Thomas Constable .

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      High Art Oe A New Kind. Pictures Cf Life...

      HIGH ART OE A NEW KIND . Pictures cf Life and Character . From the Collection of ' My . Punch . By John Lceoh . Bradbury and Evans . There are certain , people who , reading fi rst the title of this article and then the name of the picture-book selected as the subject of review , will be apt to inquiro indignantly whether the writer is in jest or in earnest who associates the words ¦* ' High Art" with the name of John Iieeeh . Such persons may l ) e assuxed at the outset that we aro certainly in earnest . We believe High Art to bo the Art which most directly and comprehensibly appeals to the largest number of intelligent people of aU classes . We will accept no narrower definition than this . We will by no moans consent to have High Art limited to sacred or profane history—to canvases of greater or Ies 3 size—to figures with boarded faces , thick legs , flowing robes , and gesticulating arms—to angels sitting on olouds , ox ; to nymphs and satyrs drunkenly hopping' in a classical country-dance . High Art genuinely appeals to some real sympathy or other—or it is not High A . rfc at all . Such a picture as Nicholas Poussin ' s famous Bacchanalian composition in our National Gallery is , in our estimation , Low Art ; because , though it might address itself legitimately enough to i ' ngan spectators a hundred years or so before Christ , it « ould address itse legitimately to no man , woman , or child , inhabiting any civilised country in any Christian period . Such a picture as Wilkio ' s . " Distraining for Heat" 5 a , in our estimation , IBgh Art , because it doos address itaelf legitimately to the largest number

      of sympatlues . Ifor the same reason , and to got nearer to the present « my and subject , wo think Mr . Millais' " Order of Release" High Art ; Mr . Frith ' s " Eamagato Sands" High Art ; and Mr . Leech ' s " Pictures from Punch" High Art * -bccauBG in various ways , and with various degrees of merit and usefulness , they address themselves directly and naturally to the largest number of sympathies . High Art affects us by gennino means ( ns in Mr . Nillaia' picture ) . or pleases us by genuine moans ( ae in Mr , Frith ' s picture mid in Mr . Leech ' s woodcuts ) . Those notions a * e , no doubt , highly heretical , according to the oanonlawa of Art , as established by groat critics , iocturers , and writers in

      guide-books-] * But tlie thinking public is-beginning to doubt those laws in some places , and to def y them altogether in others ; and we have the honour of siding . most cordially , with the thinking public . When we have said that Mr . leech's Book contains all his best contributions ; to Pundi for some years pastj exclusive of the political picture-satires—we have so f ar as our readers are concerned , pronounced its eulogium . Mr . Leech has made the public thoroughly appreciate his rare and admirable faculty as an artist . He has honestly earned his reputation , and he has done well to show how he has earned it , . by the present collection of his works—necessarily scattered over too wide a surface in the serial pages of Punch . These " Pictures of Life and Character , " are within their own limits , a social history of England in the nineteenth century . If Mr . Macaulay ' s famous and much-borrowed New Zealander should desire to know what English life was like in its lighter aspects in the year 1850 , Mr . Leech ' s " pictures" would be the very book to inform him to his heart ' s content . At every page we turn over , we find some fresh exemplification of the artist ' s delicate perception of the most striking '

      peculiarities to illustrate in the manners and the follies > of his time . The accurate observation , the delicacy of taste , the truth to nature , the admirable freedom from exaggeration , the exquisite perception of female beauty , the graceful gaiety and genial humour , which have all contributed to make Mr . Leech ' s designs in Punch some of the most popular little pictures ia England , appear to greater advantage than ever in their new and collected form . Here is the genuine comedy which reflects the manners of the age , lightly and gaily , but always truly—which points out our follies goodhumouredly , and shows us little peculiarities in our manners , tastes , and r habits which we never thought of before . Is not the mau who can do this—and who can bring to the doing it such practical knowledge of his vocation that his slightest out-of-doors background shall be a charming little landscape viewed only l > y itself—a thorough artist , though , he may not use paint ,, or write- "U . Ay " , after his name ? Surely he is ; and surely also , if genuine comedy written-with the pen be considered High Art in Literature , genuine comedy drawn with the pencil mUBt be considered High Art in painting —and may be boldly called 60 .

      Sale Of Ctwten Jones' Illuminated Woeks....

      SALE OF CTWTEN JONES' ILLUMINATED WOEKS . The last occasion for purchasing the illustrated and illuminated Works by Owen . Jones will occur the week after next , at the Auction-rooms of Mr . Hodgson . The remainder , of the books will then be sold , and after that the collector -will have to depend upon the chance , of a secondary- sale . This is more than a commercial transaction . There is scarcely any important public proceeding in connexion with art on which Owen Jones has not put the stamp of Ms hand ; and the entire stage of art belonging to the time in which we live , may be said to deriv e much of its thought and colour from this artist . He is , of course , particularly to be found in Ids own works ; In his account of the progress of illumination

      during the middle ages ; in his elaborate Monograph of the Alhambra , extending to some . hundreds of plates , coloured and illuminated with gold . These have , been works , not only o speculation , but of love . Owen Jones has buried himselideep in the Mediaeval Library of Art ; he has spent months in the Alhambra ; he has studied nature in its application to art ; and in many a quaint rich drawing he has adorned familiar texts with artistic finishes . He caught the Mediaeval spirit so completely , that he is an artist of that day living in our owii . He possesses all the earnestness of early art , but adds to it the accomplishments o a . more enlightened age . A time will come when the works of Owen Jones will be regarded by collectors as the gems of Benvenuip Cellini , or the celebrated articles of a more common jewellery which have acquired an historical favour .

      The Boyaii Gallery Of Art. This Is The F...

      THE BOYAIi GALLERY OF ART . This is the first part of a series of engravings copied from the private collections of the Queen and Prince Albert at Windsor Castle , Buckingham Palace , and Osborne . The entire series , it would appear from a published list in a separate volume , will comprise 123 engravings , some of them from pictures of considerable mark , and the whole notable , as containing a large proportion of works by living artists of the English schooL The engravings in the first number are . taken from Dyce ' s " Virgin Mother" — the Virgin and Child ; Clarkson Stanfleld ' s * ' lloyal Yacht ofi' Mount St . Michael" —a view of that oft-portrayed place , the foreground enlivened by shipping in Stanfield ' s most animated manner : and Iteynolds' portrait of the " Duchess of Devonshire . " The subjects aro all well known ; the engravers have excellently caught the manner of tho artist : Dyce ' a broad Roman stylo , inclined slightly to tho praj-Raphajlite ; Reynolds' watercolour manner , with effects produced by strong dashes of dark and light ; and Stanfield ' s exact portraiture , are conveyed into the line-engraving , with a striking felicity of imitation , and mucli freedom of colour . Tho collection may take ita rank with some of the best specimens of such engravings in tho received stylo . Subsequent numbers must includes works of greater mark ia themselves .

      There is one clause in tho oonditiona of publication that may be useful in a trading point of view , but which appears to us to bo unworthy of a " royal " publication , and totally inconsistent with tho profession in the statement of the " grounds" on which " this work recommends itself to public patronage . " The work , we aro told , will be issued only to subscribers , and when the stipulated number of impressions aro taken from tho plate , the steel 'will be cut down and tho writing altored , so as to secure a certainty that every copy shall be a subscriber ' s ; which , from its ineyitably becoming scarce , must increase in vulne . This is true , commercially ; but the value of a work of art consists , not in its exchangeable price , but in tho qualities of tho thing . A great work of llaphaol ' s would not bo diminished in its intrinsic value , though it were multiplied a million-fold ; just as tho life-producing power in any given boiled fowl would bo

      exactly the same though there were a fowl in every man ' s pot , as Henry the Fourth wished . It is a very spurious land of value which arises from an artificially produced rarity ; but tho manner in -which tho rarity is created , in . tho proscnt instance , is inconsistent with tho first of the " grounds" set forth of " recwnniontliiUon to public patronage , " " n » thu l ' rivato Collection of her Majesty tho Qucon and his Royal Highness Priucu Albert , who graciously and most generously bestowed this privilege-, that tho public gun orally may be enabled to enjoy tho Art-treasuron they have collected . " Now , tho enjoyment would bo " extended" if a copy of this work wore plnml in every homoatond of tho country . Wo leave tho editor to reconcile tho first " ground" with his seco nd " condition , " and tho latter with tho personal bunovolonco that must be diffused from her Most Gracious Majesty to every one of hur subjects .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 2, 1854, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02121854/page/19/