THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ARTISTIC EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14928, 28 February 1912, Page 10

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ARTISTIC EMPIRE.

The story is told of Pericles that in the ! process of woing Aspasia he sent her a bouquet, and fearful lest she should not guess from whom it came, he attached to it a strip of wood on which his name was cut. This, says the Figaro, was the dawn of the visiting-card. Two learned Italians, MM. Henry Prior and A. Bertarelli, have now brought out a sumptuous volume giving the whole history,, elaborately illustrated, of this little friend in society. Although born so long ago in Greece and perhaps in China as well, which had an unpleasant way of anticipating all our test inventions, the visiting-card did not really take hold of Euroj>e until the rei"-n of Louis XIV., when its advent was celebrated in verse by La Monnoye, who sang: —

"Dans Ie plus rude hiver, j'ai le dos tcujours

Rapidly it crossed the Pyrenees with Philip of Anjou, when ho was installed in the palace at Madrid. Louis XIV. himself introduced it into the Netherlands. It marched across the Alps into Italy, and was received with joy. "Now at last I really live," cried the Cavalier Gioconda; "before, I spent a whole day in paying calls. Ah! the French, the clever French !" Then began elaboration. Instead of a modest border of dowers or leaves there appeared landscapes, bite of architecture, allegories, and so forth. Scenes of rural life, grape-pick-ing, fishing, and harvesting alternate with views of monuments and towns. The name was printed on the picture of a wall, a tree, a fountain.

Count Alexandra Papoli chose a view of tho Adriatic, while the Franco' family had inscribed on their cards a large "atone guarded by two dogs, with the amphitheatre of Verona in the background. Then when the spade of tho archaelogist unearthed Pompeii and its classical treasure*, the result was seen on the cards in tho shape of bacchic dances, processions of vestal virgins, steaming sacrifices. With the Revolution came severity of ornament and a total surrender of all" titles. Marquis Angfclelii, a senator and ex-ambassa-dor, chooses to have on his card a sacrificial altar, a, Phrygian bonnet, and Brutus' dagger, and becomes simply ■• Guiseppo Angelelli." After this came a rapid decadence to the degraded form we know now. Among the illustrations in the great volume is a picture of one card on which is portrayed an enormous cube of masonry already feeling the effects of time, and underneath it the simple inscription, "A. Canova."