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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd December 1854, Edition Town of 2, Page 1147, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      BOOKS ( XN OUR TABLE . A Pvputdr History of British Mosses , comprising a General Account of their Structure , FrucUjtoation , Arrangement , and General Distribution . By Robert M . Stark . lovell R « eve . Pdpulav British Corxhology , a Familiar History of the Molluscs inhabiting the British Islea . By George Bretttagham So-tferby , RL . S . lovell Reeve . First Steps its . Economic Botany , for the Use of Students ; being an Abridgment of Popular Economic Botany . By Thomas Croxen Archer . lovell Reeve . Tfus Colonial Almanack for the Tear 1855 . Adam and Charles Black . bonnets of Cambridge Life . By William Nind , M . A . Maemillan and Co . Evidences as to the Religious Working of the Common Schools in the State of

      Massachusetts , with a Frefac e . By the Hon . Edward Twisleton , late Chief Commissioner of Poor-laws in Ireland . James Ridgway . The Quiet Heart . By the Author of " Kattie Stewart . " William Blackwood and Sons . Tht Certainly of Christianity : a Sketch . By a Layman . Thomas Constable and Co An Entirely New System of Conjugation , by which the Principle of all the French Verbs can be understood in a few Hours , with numerous Practical Examples . Second Edition . By Mons . Mariot de Beauvoisin . Effingham "Wilson . T / ie Royal Gallery of Art , Ancient and Modern . Edited by S . C . Hall , F . S . A ., &c-CPart I . ) p . and D . Cobaagbi and Co Time and Truth Reconciling the Moral avid Religious World to Shahspeare .

      "W . Kent and Co . The Native Races of the Hussion Empire * By B . G . Latham , M . D ., F . R . S ., &c . Hippolyte Bailliere . Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer ( annotated Edition of the English Poets ) . Edited by Robert Bell . John W . Parker and Son . The English Cyclopaedia , a New Dictionary of Universal Knowledge . Conducted by Charles Knight . Bradbury and Evans . Manual qfCivil ^ Law , for the Use of Schools , and mere especially of Candidates for the Civil Service . Consisting qf an Epitome im English of the Institutes of Justinian . 5 y E . R . 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 . ) Richard Griffin and Co . Four Tears at the Court of Henry XIII . Selection of Despatches tpritten ly the Venetian Ambassador , Sebastian GiwsUnian : and addressed to the Signory of Venice , Jan .. 12 , 3515 , to July 26 , 1519 . Translated by Rawdon Brown . 2 vols . Smith , Elder , and Co . A Nem , Practical , and Easy Method of Learning French , upon the System most wed on the Continent , for the Study of Languages ; with Numerous Exercises and Examples lUvGfrative of every Ride . 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 . D ., &c . ( 3 rd edition . ) Samuel Highley . A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Christianity . By Robert William Mackay , ! M . A . ( Chapman ' s Quarterly Series . ) John Chapman . Tlie Newcomes : Memoirs of a most Respectable Family . Edited by Arthur Pendennis , Esq . Bradbury and Evans . The Martins qf Cro ' Martin . By Charles Lever . N " o . 1 . Chapman and Hall . The Art Journal . No . LXXII . George Virtue and Co . Our Friend : a Monthly Miscellany . John Farquhar Shaw . The Parlour Library : Maurice Furnay , The Soldier of Fortune . By the Author of " Sir James Carew . " Thomas Hodgson . Tales qf Flemish Life . By Hendrik Conscience . Thomas Constable .

      Untitled Article

      HIGH ART OF A NEW KIND . Pictures of Life and Character . From the Collection qf Mr . Punch . By John Leech . Bradbury and Evans . There are certain people who , reading first the title of this article and then the name of the picture-book selected as the subject of review , will be apt to inquire indignantly whether the writer is in jest or in earnest who associates the words " High Art" with the name of John Leech . Such persons may be assured at the outset that we are 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 all classes . "We will accept no narrower definition than this . Wo will by no means consent to have High Art limited to Bacred or profano history—to canvases of greater or less size—to figuros with bearded facea , thick logs , flowing robes , and gesticulating arms—to angels sitting on clouds , r to nymphs and satyrs drunkcnly hopping in a . classical country-dance .

      High Ait genuinely appeals to some real sympathy or other—or it is not High Art 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 Pagan spectators a hundred years or so before Christ , it could address itse lf legitimately to no man , woman , or child , inhabiting any civilised country in any Christian period . Such a picture as Wilkie ' s " Distraining for Rent" is , in our estimation , High Art , because it does address itself legitimately to the largest number

      of sympathies . J ? or the same reason , and to got nearer to tho present day and subject , wo think Mr . Millais' " Order of Release" High Art ; Mr . Frith ' s " Ramagato Sands" High Art ; and Mr . Leech ' s " Pictures from Punch" High Art—because in various ways , and with various degrees of merit and usefulness , they address themselves directly and naturally to tho largest number of sympathies . High Art affects us b } r genuine means ( as in Mr . MillaiB' picture ) , or pleases us by genuine moans ( as in Mr . lfrith ' a picture and in Mr . Lecch'a woodcuts ) . These notions are , no doubt , highly heretical , according to tho canonjaws of Ait , as established by groat critics , lecturers , and writers in

      guidc-booka-But the 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 bis best contributions to Punch for some years past , exclusive of the political picture-satires—we have so far 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 l » is works—necessarily

      scattered over too wide a surface in the serial pages of Punch . These " Pictures of ijleand 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 vwy book to inform him to his heart ' s content . At every page we turn over , we find some tresh 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 exauisite nercention of ft . mnl «

      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 in England , appear to greater advantage than ever in their new and collected form . Here is the genuine comedy which reflects the manners of the a <* e hghtly and gaily , hut always truly—which , points out our follies goodhumouredly , and shows us little peculiarities in our manners , tastes , and habits which we never thought of before . Is not the man who can do this—and who can bring to the doing it such practical knowledge of his vocation that Ms slightest out-of-doors background shall be a charming' little landscape viewed only by itself—a thorough artist , though he may not use paint , " or write " R . A . " 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 must be considered High Art in painting •—and may be boldly called so . ¦ ¦

      Untitled Article

      SALE OF 0 WE 1 T JONES' ILLUMINATED WORKS . 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 his hand ; and the entire stage of art belonging to the time in . -which we live , may he said to deriv e much of its thought and colour from this artist . He is , of course , particularly to be found in his 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 of speculation , but of love . Owen Jones has buried himself deep 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 Medieval spirit so completely , that he is an artist of that day living in our own . He possesses all the earnestness of early art , but adds to it t he accomplishments of a more enlightened age . A time will come when the works of Owen Jones will be regarded by collectors as the gerris of Benvenuto Cellini , or the celebrated articles of a more common jewellery which have acquired an historical favour .

      Untitled Article

      THE ROYAL 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 Oshorne . The entire series , it would appear from a published list in a separate volume , will comprise 123 engravings , some of them fr om pictures of considerable mark , and tho whole notable , as containing a largo 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 Stanfield ' s u Royal Yacht off Mount St . Michael "—a view of that oft-portrayed place , tho fo reground enlivened by shipping in Stanfield ' s most animated manner ; and Reynolds' portrait of the " Duchess of Devonshire . " The subjects are all well known ; the engravers have excellently caught the manner of the artist : Dyco ' a broad Roman style , inclined slightly to the pro-Raphoolitc ; Reynolds' watercolour manner , with effects produced by strong dashes of dark aad light ; and Stanfield ' s exact portraiture , are conveyed into the line-engraving , with a striking f elicity of imitation , and much freedom of colour . The collection may take its rank with some of the best specimens of such engravings in tho received stylo . Subsequent numbers must include works of greater mark in themselves .

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

      exactly the same though there were a fowl in every man ' s pot , as Henry tho Fourth wished . It is a "very spurious kind of value which arises from an artificially produced rarity ; but tho rnaniior in which tbo rarity is created , in tho prosont instance , is inconsistent with tho first of the " grounds" aot forth oi " recommendation to public patronage , " " as tho 1 ' rivuto Collection of her MajoBty tho Queen and his Royal Highness Prince Albert , who graciously and most generously bestowed this privilego , that tho public generally may bo enabled to enjoy tho Art-treasurca they havo collected . " Now , tlioonjoj'ijiont would be " extended" if a copy of this work were placed in ovwy homestead of the country . Wo leave tho editor to reconcile tho flrat " ground" with his second " condition , " and tho latter with tho personal boiiovolonca that must be diffused from her Moat Gracious Majeaty to every ono of hor subjects .

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      Untitled Article

      December . 2 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER , H 47

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 2, 1854, page 1147, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2067/page/19/