RETROSPECT

OF

LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART IN 1907.

men.

LITERATURE.

THE award of the Nobel prize for literary distinction to Mr. Rudyard Kipling could not fail to be gratefully recognised by his fellow-countryHis selection, however, from the ranks of British writers by a body of trustees who were understood to reflect the pacific wishes of the founder of the fund, seemed somewhat strange, Mr. Kipling having done more than any writer to fan the military spirit of his countrymen into the flame which made the South African War inevitable.

The struggle between The Times' Book Club and the leading publishing houses was maintained throughout the year, though its settlement during 1908 appeared probable. Meanwhile the literary output of the year had shown no symptoms of restriction-and in some branches there was a marked increase of activity.

The appearance of the concluding volumes of more than one historical series, gave the opportunity of expressing a more matured opinion on the method of publication inaugurated by the late Lord Acton, and applied in the first instance to the "Cambridge Modern History." The verdict of students, though not unanimous, was not, on the whole, favourable.

Probably the most distinctive note of the year in literary work was to be sought not in historical research but in speculative inquiry. The recent advances made in the domain of physical science seem to have stimulated a renewed interest in metaphysical study. In like manner the results of scientific assurance and archæological exploration have stimulated Biblical criticism, and quickened theological discussion After the lapse of nearly four centuries the conflict between authority and independent judgment has once more become acute, and controversy rages throughout the Western Churches, but as a rule with restraint and mutual respect.

Sufficient encouragement seems to have been given to a certain hybrid kind of biography, which is neither historical nor imaginative. On the basis of overlooked letters or unrecorded events, the life of some prominent person of the past is rewritten-somewhat on the model of

the "interviews " accorded to representatives of the Press by living celebrities. The works produced pretend to give graphic reports of conversations that never took place, and discuss motives which have never been revealed. They are not the outcome of careful research, and still less are they historical novels after the recognised type. In many cases they are embellished with portraits and other illustrations of the period concerned-thus falling in with the apparently recognised theory of the day, that only books pictorially attractive will commend themselves to the ordinary public. At the same time this concession to public taste in the production of books of travel will be gratefully acknowledged by a large body of serious readers, and in all works relating to past or contemporary art illustrations enhance the value of the book. Although the spheres for adventurous exploration have become limited in recent times, there are still travellers who are willing to face hardship in order to explore remote or unknown districts. Happily not a few of these have also the talent of describing the countries they visited and the people they saw with freshness, and to these the year's publishing is indebted for several interesting volumes.

The field of fiction widens with the spread of knowledge, and of freespeaking. Topics which formerly were relegated to experts are openly discussed by qualified and unqualified pen-practitioners, who are sometimes ready to offer solutions of the problems they suggest, but more frequently leave their readers to find the key. The majority of writers, however, content themselves with the older materials of fictionincidents, passion and sentiment. Some include psychology and theology in their scheme, and more recently surgery and therapeutics have also asserted their right to a place in the modern novel. Motoring and aerostatics have already found their respective vates, whilst the part which submarines might play in fact has been already foreshadowed in fiction. As regards those works of the year which have had the greatest vogue, the writers of well-established reputation have had among the newcomers few serious competitors for public favour. Among the latter there seems to be a tendency to drift away from the old way of placing normal human beings in dramatic or romantic situations. The modern fashion seems rather to depict strange and crooked characters enclosed by a barbed-wire fence of fantastic difficulties-physical or moral-or enmeshed in a tangle for which they are in no way responsible. The author then displays his ingenuity by extricating them with apparently so little trouble that the reader is left in doubt as to whether the psychological perplexities involved could by such a wandstroke have been dissipated.

ART AND ARCHEOLOGY.

In Professor Burrows' Discoveries in Crete (Murray) readers are able to obtain a glimpse of the civilisation and magnificence of the Minoan Kingdom as it existed in the days of the remote ancestors of the historic Greeks. The discoveries at Crete raise problems and difficulties of which the solution is still to be sought. Professor Burrows,

abstaining from any dogmatic assertion on the place occupied by Minoan art in the history of civilisation in South-Eastern Europe, leans to the view of its very remote antiquity. He does not pretend to have any original theory of his own, and the chief value of his book is that it presents in a concrete and attractive form the results of the most recent explorations in Crete and elsewhere, and of the discussions to which these have given rise.

Dr. Farnell has found that the Cults of the Greek States (Clarendon Press) are not to be dealt with as summarily as he expected. The discoveries made by excavators during the last dozen years have widened his task, and Dr. Farnell discovers that the worship of the greater gods of Olympus, and the official worship of the Greek States and cities do not in any way cover the whole field of religious feeling and expression. "Mysteries" as a form of private worship, and hero worship, still remain to be dealt with. The volumes now issued throw much light upon the way in which existing local deities were put aside as the apparent need for their attributed powers shifted with the habits of the people. In many cases, too, new forms of worship would be brought by invading settlers, furnishing Dr. Farnell with materials which throw fresh light upon the much-debated question of the origins of Greek civilisation.

To condense into a single volume A History of Sculpture (Heinemann) which shall be at once adequate and readable is no slight feat. Nevertheless, Mr. Ernest Short has produced a volume which practically meets the requirements of the general reader. He does not, it is true, touch upon the earlier phases of Babylonian, Egyptian or Mycenæan art, which interest rather the archæologist than the art-student. However, a sufficiently wide field of observation lies between 500 B.C. to 1900 A.D. Mr. Short shows how during that period sculpture has passed through many phases of idealism, realism and conventionalism ever recurring more or less obviously to the type which had been recognised in the days of Pericles as most worthy to be expressed in marble. Mr. Short is not led away by a blind devotion to Thorwaldsen still less by the sentimentalism of Canova, but he recognises that both felt, as our own Flaxman had done, the influence of Winckelmann on the art revival of the last century.

It is a matter of congratulation that the vindication of the claims of Roman art should have been undertaken by one so well equipped as Mrs. Arthur Strong. Her volume on Roman Sculpture from Augustus to Constantine (Duckworth) critically examines and finally disposes of the theory that this form of Roman art was wholly imported from Greece and supported by immigrant Greeks. Without attaching too great importance to the origin and subsequent influence of Etruscan art, she is able to show conclusively, and from instances adduced, that the Roman sculptors of the Empire were imbued with the best and truest inspiration, and that the statues and busts which they produced were marked by attributes for which one would seek in vain at any period of Greek art. How it happens that even the most competent Roman sculptors remain anonymous she does not explain, but she proves by examples that the two nationalities had distinct ideals and

differed in their way of expressing them, even when working simultaneously and under the same patrons.

It is not only from the painter's point of view that the carefully selected examples of The Christ Face in Art (Duckworth) make Mr. James Burns' monograph interesting. In a sense the painter's ideal inspired the devotee's conception whilst also expressing the religious sentiment of his day. Thus we can trace the gradual development of the human element as we approach the fifteenth century, and follow the emancipation of art from the trammels of Byzantine tradition. The gulf which separates Van Eyck's conception of Christ from Michael Angelo's is not greater than that which separates Rembrandt's from Titian's, or in our own days the ideal of Holman Hunt from that of Uhde. The student of the progress of religious thought, therefore, will find in this volume many hints to guide him on his way.

Mr. W. R. Lethaby has promptly justified his selection as surveyor to our Royal Church by his valuable study of Westminster Abbey and the King's Craftsmen (Duckworth). His aim has been to detect, as far as possible, the individual work of the various men engaged in the building, or the embellishment of the great Abbey-Church. Mr. Lethaby, by the help of the accounts luckily preserved, shows that the master craftsmen of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries-the mason, the sculptor and the painter-were not subjected to the control of an overruling architect, but were left more or less free scope for their individual talents. As, however, in most Gothic buildings, the work at Westminster was often in the hands of guilds, whose tastes and fancy had to be consulted, if not always followed, by the head-man of the craft. Mr. Lethaby has rescued from undeserved oblivion a number of English craftsmen whose names have as much claim to be associated with their achievements as those of Lombardy or Tuscany.

The infinite variety of North Italian art, due to local and foreign influences, makes it an attractive subject of study and criticism. Mr. Francis Bumpus in his sumptuous volume on The Cathedrals and Churches of Northern Italy (Werner Laurie) deals systematically with the architecture of the principal ecclesiastical buildings between Trent and Ravenna and from Turin to Venice, indicating the special features of each and their chief points of similarity or divergence. Mr. B. Berenson with his volume on the North Italian Painters of the Renaissance (Putnam's Sons) completes the series of monographs by which he has obtained his reputation as a trustworthy guide to Italian art and artists. Brescia, Bergamo, Milan and Verona are the schools to which he here gives most attention, and his knowledge and criticism of some of the less known painters of the Renaissance period are of the highest value. The index to the works of these artists, and the present homes of their works, is compiled with the utmost care and may be consulted with the fullest confidence. Mr. E. L. Seeley's Artists of the Italian Renaissance (Chatto & Windus), taking a somewhat wider range, is based upon Vasari and the older chroniclers whose works are little known outside Italy. Here again the struggle between local and national aspirations and foreign influences is brought into view and is clearly shown by numerous and well-selected illustrations.

Miss Maud Cruttwell's Antonio Pollaiuolo (Duckworth) is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of fifteenth century art. She has succeeded in cataloguing the scattered remnants of the works of a sculptor who, without perhaps attaining the position which Miss Cruttwell would claim for him, exercised considerable influence upon his successors. The monuments erected to Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. in St. Peter's at Rome are the best known of Pollaiuolo's works, but in both there is reason to believe his younger and less masterful brother Piero had a hand. Miss Cruttwell endeavours to place the elder brother on a pinnacle, and makes out a fair but not wholly convincing case for one who certainly deserves to be better known.

Professor Baldwin Brown has the advantage over many previous writers on the Life and Work of Rembrandt (Duckworth) in being able to assimilate the results of their labours, and to present in a handy form as much as it is important to know of the greatest of Dutch painters and draughtsmen. There, too, was quite enough drama in Rembrandt's life to make its story interesting, and it may be that because his life was stormy that his art was so distinctive. Professor Baldwin Brown's judicial spirit makes his work a valuable guide.

Although Mr. Clouston has little to add to what is already known of Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A. (Newnes' Art Library), his appreciative criticism will be welcome to many. Raeburn's almost unique position among British portrait-painters is due to his simplicity and directness. He was more successful for this very reason in his portraiture of men, but his strength and range are well shown in the selection contained in this volume. The numerous reproductions of his most important works are executed with more than ordinary skill and will popularise his fame.

BELLES LETTRES.

Mr. Andrew Lang has rendered too many services to students of classical literature that his volume on Homer and His Age (Longmans) should be passed without acknowledgment. He has the courage to take up arms against the army of excavators and archæologists who would find the origin of the Homeric poems in some remote period of which the secrets, though only partially revealed, have already found a host of conflicting interpreters. Mr. Lang boldly maintains that theirs is lost labour; that Homer and his colleagues belonged not to the Minoian era, but to a more recent period of civilisation than the palaces and temples which are being laboriously unearthed. They were the poets not of the dawn, nor of the noon-tide, but of the fading hours of an older time. To Homer the stories of gods and goddesses, of heroes, Trojan and Greek, were myths or memories, and he merely furnished a poetic setting in keeping with the period in which he himself lived. How and why the Homeric poems survived, and how far they were amplified or altered in the course of time, is another question, but Mr. Lang out of the abundant store of his vast reading is able to adduce parallels from other languages, as extinct as the originals of the now accepted Greek text.

Mr. J. Ernest Phythian's pleasant book on Trees in Nature, Myth