From one to six blocks, depending on the number of separate colours the design requires, have to be carved for each subject. Ultimate success we see then, is a matter of more than artistic ability in the usual sense of the term. To facility in design we must add patience, manual dexterity and a sort of mathematical as well as artistic ingenuity. These personal resources rather than any knowledge of tricks of the process, which indeed is extremely simple in its elements, are the main essentials of accomplishment.

colours must be placed in masses with no blending, as is possible in oil painting, for instance, the master of his craft or the bungler is revealed at the very outset.

Following the Japanese precedent, cherry is the wood the artist generally uses for the printing blocks. The carving is done with a set of knives, gouges and chisels which he has himself ground, after Japanese models of which he had illustrations. On each block is pasted a tracing of the original design made transparent by oiling. As

At this point a consideration of the various processes employed by Babcock may be of interest. It should be remarked, first of all, concerning the original picture to be reproduced, that if the final outcome is to be praiseworthy, the artist's drawing must be such as to lend itself to the special requirements of the reproductive process. In the nature of the case, simplicity of composition and an elimination of detail in drawing are fundamental. Colour must be handled from the standpoint of its decorative quality and the power of a few tones skilfully used to suggest vastly more than is actually depicted. As the

the printing of each of the particular lines and masses of one colour is the function of the separate blocks, the craftsman cuts away from these all the rest of the design. The part so left in relief is consequently the printing surface.

A Japanese etching paper of a very tough and fibrous sort is used. At first Babcock adhered strictly to the Oriental method of slightly moistening the paper, but experimentation has shown him that as the climatic conditions of dry Colorado are so dissimilar from those of moist Japan as to make duplication of this part of the original tech-. nique at best only approximate, he now employs

dry paper. This is rubbed into contact with the blocks by heavy pressure from a large photo graphic mounting roller. He has found that this manner of handling secures a suggestion of the texture and grain of the wood which are elements of charm in the finished print.

Another variation from the methods of the Japanese masters is in the use for printing of water-colours without the addition of rice paste or other body colour. Translucence rather than opaqueness of tone is in this way obtained.

It is the artist's aim, so far as possible, to make each print an individual work of art. So he runs off at one time only a small number from each set of blocks. In this way he can vary the tones of each to suit his fancy or even plan two or more distinct colour schemes for each subject.

Being as he is ardently devoted to out-of-door life, a student of nature and, and finding in landscape subjects the compositions which especially appeal to him, it is obvious that such a wonderland as Estes Park should attract Babcock as the place for both his work and year-around home. When we know, too, his particular interest in carefully worked-out design, and what we may term an elemental treatment of his compositions, it is equally obvious that the winter phase, when a mantle of snow has blotted out a world of pictorial unessentials, should be that of greatest appeal.

We find in Dean Babcock's prints, as in all his other work, a distinct mastery in design, marked decorative quality and a skilful use of colour.

Pictorial interest is obtained not only without the sacrifice of natural form but by a quite faithful adherence to it. His natural forms have remarkable accuracy but are free from undue literalism and the attempt to reproduce petty detail. As to composition, he tells us that his aim is to find and emphasize nature's own designs rather than use natural forms as simply the basis of his own arrangements.

In the sense that he has caught the essential elements of character in his mountains, rocks, trees and streams and has so skilfully set them forth that we are impressed instantly with their reality, we might even term his work photographic. The discerning cannot fail to find here a wonderfully vivid depiction of nature which, though fundamentally truthful, is more poetic than a mere representation would be. Objectivity in the largest and broadest sense of the word his work has, for it reflects an intimate knowledge of the snowy peaks and timbered wilderness and a fresh, vital conveyance of their meaning.

BUREAU OF ADVICE

ON PAINTINGS

THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIO gives authoritative opinions upon old and modern paintings. Mr. Raymond Wyer, who is a recognized authority, is in charge of this department and will give special attention to letters addressed to this magazine under the above heading.

THE COLLECTOR.-Sorry, Mr. Director, but I really can't afford to give the Art Museum anything more just at present.

THE DIRECTOR.-I'm sorry, too-heartily sorry. I can only hope for better luck next time.

THE COLLECTOR.-Don't go yet. There's something I'd like to speak about. . . . I wish we had a catalogue of the lost old paintings by great masters. It would include, for example, the lost original (by Giorgione) of the David in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, and the lost original (quite certainly by Velasquez) of another copy in the same Viennese gallery, namely, Mazo's portrait of the Infanta Margarita. It would include also the lost originals (both by Titian) of the Duke of Westminster's copy of Urbino and his Son, and of Lord Malmesbury's copy of Lucretia. It would include the lost series of illustrations (by Michelangelo himself-think of that!) for the Divina Commedia of Dante, and the sketch (by Velasquez) of that Prince of Wales who was afterward Charles I., the loss of which my old friend de Beruete used to deplore. These are a few of the great things that may still be found. . . ... THE DIRECTOR.-Suppose we should discover all precious lost originals, together with a lot of lost school-pictures and lost good old copies? Let us suppose they all belonged to you and me. THE COLLECTOR.-Gladly!

THE DIRECTOR.-Well, then. Should we have them catalogued, hung in serried rows, and exhibited publicly in a gallery no better suited to the purpose than are, with a few exceptions, the European public art galleries and museums—or, to be frank and fair, our own American galleries, with, perhaps, a few noteworthy exceptions here also? Wouldn't the precious old pictures remain lost?

THE COLLECTOR.-Don't exaggerate.

THE DIRECTOR.-I mean, of course, to all intents and purposes lost to sight-if you could never look at them in the way it was intended they should be looked at.

THE COLLECTOR (deliberating).-I know what you mean, and I often think of a saying of one of our distinguished art critics or experts, to the effect that the public collections of Europe seem to put every possible or conceivable obstacle in

the way of our enjoyment. He believes, if I rightly remember, that each masterpiece should be isolated in a special niche like the image of a jealous god, and he complains that, on the contrary, it is often stuck like a postage stamp on a wall covered with paintings that have little or nothing but archæological or historical interest to recommend them. And another writer, looking backward to the times when altar-pieces and easel-pictures were visible in the very places for which their painters had designed them and therefore in their own sympathetic surroundings

manifests an art-lover's longing for the restoration of surroundings that might at least be suitable, though, naturally, never again quite the same. . . I fancy you think we should never consent to public exhibition of really great pictures until provision has been made for showing them in their own sympathetic surroundings-so that we can really and adequately see them-so that their supreme qualities (often not the most obvious ones), which make them what they are, shall not be, as you put it, practically "lost to sight."

THE DIRECTOR.-Exactly!... Now, what do you think about it?

THE COLLECTOR.-I should like, of course, to isolate every masterpiece in a special niche, or, if that is not practicable, I should like to build galleries with wall-space so ample that even those pictures which lack something of the superlative quality that we revere in the great masterpieces need not be crowded together; since I find it very difficult to appreciate fully any single painting when others in the same field of vision compete with it for my attention. Moreover, many a good picture to-day hangs where you cannot back away to get it at the right distance; or the glass protecting it mirrors other objects so clearly that your gaze can at no hour, from no angle, quite overcome the confusing reflections. In the latter case you can more literally employ your pet phrase, "lost to sight." And, furthermore, for the better enjoyment of all the old paintings, I should like to reproduce such surroundings as they had originally. That is what I should like to do if it were at all possible to carry out such an ideal plan. But would it be possible?

THE DIRECTOR.-With only a small collection, that certainly could be done. Moreover it is, I think, possible for us to achieve, even with very large collections, vastly better results here and

now, or in the near future, than any to which we have hitherto attained in this country. Let's start with the proposition that all the various collections in a large museum of art should be arranged in chronological order, to bring out the historical, as well as the æsthetic, relationships....

THE COLLECTOR.-But I prefer the purely æsthetic to the chronological arrangement.

THE DIRECTOR.-Certainly: within each group, the æsthetic; but the larger groups themselves in chronological order, so that a visitor can observe and study the history of art, from the earliest times to our own day, simply by making intelligent use of his eyes in one gallery after another, taking the rooms or galleries in the prescribed sequence and consulting such catalogues as will be supplied then-the last word in competent connoisseurship. That ideal arrengement was, as you of course know, not indeed realized but approximated long ago in a European museum, and maintained on a very large scale. We should do the same thing in America on a much larger scale, planning the development of a more nearly perfect art museum with such liberality that it may, through the steady and vigorous growth that will be insured by public appreciation of its noble aim so high and yet so easy to understand become the very first in all the world.

THE COLLECTOR.-Hold hard! We were talking about the arrangement and the display of paintings only, and now you are planning the entire museum, with all its collections-its architecture, its sculpture, and what not, as well as the pictures!

THE DIRECTOR.-Quite so. I do that because a systematized collection of paintings in the midst of unorganized collections of (as you say) architecture, sculpture, and what not, could never produce its proper effect. It must be part of one harmonious development that shall prevail in every part of the splendid museum of the future. . . . Naturally, the effort to arrange and display the pictures in such a manner as to illustrate the history of painting in all important schools will give us harmonious combinations and help us to show many of the pictures, though, perhaps, not every last and least one, in perfectly sympathetic, not conflicting or hostile, surroundings.

THE COLLECTOR.-I suppose you have thought about the cost. For the additional buildings your plan necessitates, and for maintenance, we must

have I mean, beside what we have alreadyhow much?

THE DIRECTOR.-We must have, beside what we have already, a mere trifle a mere trifle, I say, in view of the fact that my plan-or let me say our plan-when applied to our very large though generally still unorganized collections in many departments of art, will confer benefits above all price upon the greatest city in the world and the richest. Let us say ten millions. THE COLLECTOR.-I shall be one of ten to give one million each.

OOK REVIEWS

BOOK

THE ART OF INTERIOR DECORATION by Grace Wood and Emily Burbank. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1916. Price $0.00.

The four fundamental principles of Interior Decoration, viz., Good Line, Correct Proportion, Harmonious Colour Scheme and Appropriateness are the foundation of this book. The subject matter of the first few chapters includes the creation and re-arrangement of rooms and their furnishings, and the treatment of individual problems. Following this is a brief outline of the historical periods of furniture, which, with the accompanying thirty-two illustrations, should be well worth studying by the reader who may want to furnish a house, and is in search of definite ideas and information. It is only within the past few years that Interior Decoration has been recognized and given its place as one of the arts. Much has been written about Art, and we have come to regard it as a thing apart from our ordinary existence. It is the object of modern interior decoration to reveal the relationship existing between Art and Life, and to encourage the growth of art appreciation in the home. The authors have sought to help us obtain this appreciation which will enable us to differenitate between that which is good in interior decoration and that which is not; we are encouraged to realize that harmonious surroundings are not only a continuous source of pleasure to (our æsthetic sense) but contribute largely to the comfort and peace of our every-day life. The manner of presentation is somewhat didactic, but the authors have kept as their aim clearness and brevity, and the terse suggestions offered should have interest for the general reader as well as for those who are giving special thought to the study of this subject.

B

OOK REVIEWS

DECORATIVE ELEMENTS IN ARCHITECTURE: RANDOM OBSERVATIONS ON THE ETERNAL FITNESS OF THINGS FROM A DECORATIVE POINT OF VIEW. By W. Francklyn Paris. (John Lane Company.) Price $5.00.

A fine vision of art by a decorative artist. Certainly the artist of to-day has need of extensive vision, standing, as he does, looking alternately behind and ahead for inspiration and hope. His vision backward, down the richly coloured perspective of the years, impresses him with the happy and helpful conditions which favoured the men who created from dreams the complex artistic realities of their times. Under the warm sun of benign and intelligent patronage, there flourished a remarkable production of artistic effort, in every kind of creative work, which we see now carefully harvested in the granaries we call museums, both public and private.

In the present-day artist's vision of the future, he tries earnestly to see some revival of the old kind of art patronage some time when he will not be forced to barter in competitive marketplaces with a commodity that should never be conceived as a competitive one. But our presentday artist stands as bravely as he can (though often, alas, nervously) in that small and very debatable terrain we call with often misplaced pride, "the present time"-a foothold as insecure as the "no-man's land" of the great European battlefields, the shell-scarred area between the two opposing first-line trenches.

This terrain, "the present time," is still in the thick of the fracas so far as the artist is concerned. It has not been won by the past nor yet by the future, and those who occupy it are assailed by fire from both sides. The past cannot be re-lived -we can only hope that certain fine impulses of the real art patrons of the past can come to actuate (perhaps even more splendidly) some real art patrons of the future.

Meanwhile we find promise of finer and better things in the contemplation of a small body of artists painters, sculptors, architects, interior decorators, furniture designers-bravely holding their own in this "no-man's land" of the present, bravely guarding what they can of the treasures of past art, in trust, as it were, to hand on to the betterment of future art. One of these earnest believers in both past and future is W. Francklyn

Paris, who has supplemented the admirable work of head and hand and taste in interior decoration by writing a very inspiring book which he calls "Decorative Elements in Architecture." Its excellent sub-title throws revealing light upon the remarks I have made above, and upon the (I hope) not too remote analogy they contain: "Random Observations on the Eternal Fitness of Things from a Decorative Point of View."

Many of the really sincere artists of to-day must rest content to “do their bit" for the cause of future arts, by devotedly following high ideals in their work, by preserving the fine old ideals of the past and by refusing to join the ranks of the mutineers, deserters and insurrectos—the campfollowers and aesthetic anarchists who devise strange names for their cults. These names, perhaps, serve an intended purpose in distracting public scrutiny from a true appraisal of the mad originalia they purport to justify.

But among the few earnest ones there are those who do more than occupy a telling place in the firing-line there are those who give further service by dropping explosives in the enemy's camp from aeroplanes, rising to a fine height above the conflict in such writings as this new book by Mr. Paris.

As befits a book upon art by an artist, it is very finely produced and splendidly illustrated. A rich but not sumptuous cover, good paper, excellent typography and margins—these are, in themselves, details of an art which must be handed on, with the rest, to the waiting futurethe Art of the Book. And a most refreshing thing about the illustrations should be welcomed

they are all of unusual works of art. I am thinking, particularly, of some of the illustrations of fine furniture: Empire chairs that add vastly to the appreciation of a too-little appreciated style, furniture of Louis XV and Louis XVI revealing new beauties of an accepted beautiful period of art, Gothic furniture, carving and metal work, instinct with that intensely personal and craftsman-wrought spirit of the mediæval genius.

Mr. Paris has done a great deal in this new book-much toward projecting upon the mental screen which is our mind, a fine image of a splendid vision of art. Here is an excellently intelligent co-relation of the many things which go to make up art especially the fine art of interior decoration, which is not any one thing, but many.