LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 5 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Among the Japanese engravings which are now exhibited in London is one in which is shown a little boy exposing his body to tho attacks of mosquitoes so that his parents may be spared the bites. Oliver Lay's portrait of Edwin Booth, upon which he has been long engaged, ia now on exhibition at Reichard's Gallery, in New York. It shows the actor as " Hamlet" seated in the soliloquy scene. Alma Tadcma's much-talked about new picture, " The Feast of Heliogabalus," is about to be put on exhibition. The artist is said to have paid extravagant prices for fresh roses used as models in his work. "Jubilee-tide in Rome" is the title of a book in which Mr. J. G. Cox, editor of the Tablet, will describe his experiences during the recent celebrations at Rome. Messrs. Burns and Oates will be the publishers. Cardinal Manning has written an article on the recently issued " Life of Darwin," and it , , is hoped that it will appear in one of the magazines. His Eminence, it is said, speaks highly of Darwin's personal character. Stepniak'simport-ant work, "Theßussian Peasantry," which embodies the result of several years' labour, is at length ready for publication, and will be issued in a few days by Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co. Mr. Edwin Hodder, the biographer of Lord Shaftesbury, is (says the Athetnvum) engaged in writing a work on tho progress of Christian civilisation, especially in connection with missionary enterprise, during tho last hundred years. Dresden is disturbed by the scandal of tho discovery of various forged "old masters," in tho gallery of which the Saxon Capital is so justly proud. In the new catalogue the director, Dr. Woerraan, declares that several pictures recently purchased at high prices are not genuine, and that twelve out of eighteen pictures bought in 1574-7>"> are copies, intentional frauds, or the work of pupils. The name of" Phenomenology" was given by Dr. Charles Waldstein, of Cambridge, at his first lecture on Ruskin at the Royal Institution, to what he claimed to be a new " iirt-science" founded by Mr. Ruskin. This consists in a new attitude of mind in the presence of Nature—half-way between the scientific and artistic attitudes. It is the attitude, Dr Waldstein said, of one who studies neither the causes nor the moods of things, but their appearances. Mr. T. \Vi Higtrinson has been lecturing to the Harvard students on literature as a profession. Money-making, he told them, ought never to be thought of in connection with the literary life, its rewards being success, and the acquaintance, respect, admiration, and fame which success insures. If this ideal had always been acted up to we fancy the world would have very little good literature to boast of. Mr. Higginson, it is interesting to notice, does not include "newspaper men" in the literary class, for he considers that literature begins with the weekly papers only. Sir Richard Temple's "Palestine Illustrated'' is about to be published by Messrs. YV. H. Allen and Co. The author's purpose is to present a reproduction of thirty-two studies made by him in oil-colours of very interesting scenes in the Holy Land. The novelty of Sir Richard Temple's plan over that of other illustrators is that they have usually been content with the exhibition of form with iijjht and shade, but he has attempted to display colouring. The advantage of this method of illustrating sacred scenery has received the approval of Mr. Ruskin. The work contains thirty-two illustrations in colours, two lithographs, and four maps. Mr. Holman Hunt opened the eighth annual Loan Exhibition of pictures at St. Jude'.s Schools, Whiteehapel. In the course of an address on the connection between art and the people, he said the special hope in the spread of art-hunger among the working classes is in the growth of an influence that shall rectify the tendency to make the taste an exotic one. He remarked that recondite ideas are not out of the range of the working classes, who pass a painting quickly by if it makes no appeal to their love of intelligence. The singleness of view with which an unsophisticated workman comes to the question saves him much bewilderment, for as a piece of workmanship he undoubtedly looks for the right characteristics in a work of art.