ocean, A Spuny op mis Dever miwr,"—By Roger Pry. London:
The Hogaith Press. Price. 85. 6d net, which together take about 83 pages of the book, should be read with the greatest attention by every student and business man who desires to know the origin and development of trade, commerce and industry of iMicult to conceive' how the of Cézanne, if they. at all the reproductions in this call forth the peans of bestowed upon them by Mr. Fay. A careful study of the illus: trations fails to support the eulogies and fulsome praise indulged in, On the other hand, the paintings become more and' more repulsive, in some cases loathsome is the only word.
How they can be considered as Art is beyond the understanding of this reviewer.
Mr, Fry analyses the pictures in detail, some in x most exhaustive manner, and gives the impression that he is blinded by the undoubted impressionistic crudity of the drawing into iniagining qualities which fare rot to be found in the pictures and into overlooking the hideous distortions, bad drawing, repulsive deformities, and depraved emotions portrayed in these paintings. And having said this we feel there is a very' great deal more to say but it seems hardly worth the saying.
It is astounding that heré-worship can be carried to such w pitch ads Mr, Fry displays. An artist implies' something more than the mero ability to feel and imagi 'Cézanne of course had these power tom high degree; abnormally so, und in an abnormal direction as his was. the cult of ugl but. because Cézanne could see the hideous in nature, could see the female form as it never by any accident looked like except to a diseased imagination, and could throw a stench of depravity over the most beautiful scene, Mr, Fry is ready to hail him as one of the great artists of all time, Without the ability to draw, with'no power of conjuring up' pictorial image mentally on which build a picture, lacking almost everything that goes to make @ re artist, and swamped by an. erotic temperament, Cézanne certainly does not merit the extraordinary. praise bestowed upon him in this book.
Possibly he could handle colours; must be supposed that in some way his colour effects counter-acted the nppallingly distasteful pictures he.produced, But this point it is impossible to judge from the monochrome reproductions which more than likely, incorrectly reproduce the correct colour-values. We can only hope that his colours do in some way make up for the otherwise revolting nuture of the pic-that on page 30, Mr. Liew permits himself, for a moment, to become unscientific in his discussion of the econo mic advantages of Shanghai, but considering that there is only one Tapse from science to polities in this well written treatise, one can forgive Mr. Lieu's slightly biassed opinion of the causes for the economic pre-eminence of this city.
Tt might be suggested in passing, that similar studies by Mr. Liew would be welcomed and that 2 rrenius such as his might be devoted to the study of tax problems in this country, with regard to which the foreign, no lees than the Chinese mind, is ina state of complete confusion—G. E. S.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.