Mr. Sickert contributed two drawings. “The Old Oxford Music Hall” has some very good qualities, especially the most important quality of all, that of making us feel as if we were there. The singer on the stage (whose attitude has been very closely observed) is strongly lighted by convergent rays. According to my recollection the rays themselves are much more visible in reality than they are here, but it is possible that the artist may have intentionally subdued their brightness in order to enhance that of the figure itself. The musicians and others are good, except that they are too small, if the singing girl (considering her distance) is to be taken as the standard of comparison. The pen-sketch of “A Lady Reading” is not so satisfactory. I know, of course, that it is offered only as a very slight and rapid sketch, and that it is impossible, even for a Rembrandt, to draw accurately in a hurry, but there is a formlessness in some important parts of this sketch (the hands, for instance) which makes it almost without interest for me. It is essentially painter's pen work, and does not show any special mastery of pen and ink.
The very definite pen-drawing by Mr. Housman called “The Reflected Faun” is open to the objection that the reflections in the water are drawn with the same hardness as the birds and faun in the air. The plain truth is that the style adopted, which in its own way is as legitimate as any other, does not permit the artist to represent the natural appearance of water. This kind of pen-drawing is founded on early wood-engraving which filled the whole space with decorative work, even to the four corners.
Mr. Rothenstein is a modern of the moderns. His two slight portrait-sketches are natural and easy, and there is much life in the “Portrait of a Gentleman.” The “Portrait of a Lady,” by Mr. Furse, is of a much higher order. It has a noble gravity, and it shows a severity of taste not common in the portraiture of our time; it is essentially a distinguished work. Mr. Nettleship gives us an ideal portrait of Minos, not in his earthly life, as king of Crete, but in his infernal capacity as supreme judge of the dead. The face is certainly awful enough and implacable:
Stavvi Minòs orribilmente, e ringhia:
Esamina le colpe nell'entrata;
Giudica e manda, secondo ch'avvinghia.
The book-plate designed by Mr. Beardsley for Dr. Propert has the usual qualities of the inventor. It seems to tell a tale of hopeless love. The other book-plate, by Mr. Anning Bell, is remarkable for its pretty and ingenious employment of heraldry which so easily becomes mechanical when the draughtsman is not an artist.
On the whole, these illustrations decidedly pre-suppose real artistic culture in the public. They do not condescend in any way to what might be guessed at as the popular taste. I notice that the Editor and Publishers have a tendency to look to young men of ability for assistance in their enterprise, though they accept the criticism of those who now belong to a preceding generation.