VAN EYCK and THE FLEMISH SCHOOL. By Mary Heaton, Author of "The History of Albrecht Dürer." With many Illustrations.
GIOTTO. By Harry Quilter, M.A., Trinity Col., Cambridge. From recent investigations at Padua and Assisi. With many Illustrations.
CORNELIUS and OVERBECK. By J. Beavington Atkinson, Author of "The Schools of Modern Art in Germany."
NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
1. From a Review in the Spectator, July 5, 1879.
"It is high time that some thorough and general acquaintance with the works of these mighty painters should be spread abroad, and it is also curious to think how long their names have occupied sacred niches in the world's heart, without the presence of much popular knowledge about the collective work of their lives.... If the present series of biographies, which seems to be most thoroughly and tastefully edited, succeeds in responding to the wants of modest, if ardent, art-knowledge, its aim will be accomplished."
2. Reprinted from the Times, January 22, 1880.
"Few things in the way of small books upon great subjects, avowedly cheap and necessarily brief, have been hitherto so well done as these biographies of the Great Masters in painting. They afford just what a very large proportion of readers in these hurrying times wish to be provided with—a sort of concentrated food for the mind. The Liebigs of literature, however, especially in that of the fine arts, need no small amount of critical acumen, much experience in the art of system, and something of the bee-like instinct that guesses rightly where the honey lies. The mere 'boiling down' of great books will not result in giving us a good little book, unless the essence is properly diluted and set before us in a form that can be readily assimilated, so to speak, and not in an indigestible lump of details. The writers of these biographies have, on the whole, succeeded in giving an excellent aperçu of the painters and their works, and better where they have adhered to the lives written by acknowledged specialists—such as M. Vosmaer for Rembrandt, Passavant for Raphael, and Dr. Woltmann for Holbein. The life of Holbein is by the editor, with whom the idea of such a series originated, and to whose great experience is to be attributed the very valuable copies of all the important pictures contained in the different biographies. These have been selected with great taste and judgment, and being taken generally from less well-known works by the masters, they enhance the interest and add much to the practical utility of the books. The chronological lists of the works of the masters are also very useful additions."
3. From La Chronique des Arts, March 20, 1880.