New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-04-01

Outrage Orne de 400 Gravures. Quarto.. PIP.
VII $40. Paris: j. Rouam ct Cie New-iork :
4. ". BoutVi. 1sD3.
NJ. Vachon's portly volume on the part which
woman has played in the history OF art is Itself
not history, but sketch. 1t could not well
have been made anything else unless Its size had
been greatly increased for the subject 1t treats Is
immense. Some of the phases OF womahs sig
nihcance in art which NJ. Vachon considers can D"
disposed of in comparatively small space Inc
most important phase of all. which touches her
perennial charm as the theme of artists cannot
he adequately treated in one book or two. for 1t
carries us back to the earliest days OF art ana
from that time to this woman has hardly ever
ceased 10 figure in pictorial and plastic representa-
tions. There have been periods when her fortunes
az a model have been at a low ebD Leo 'le
Isaurian placed her temporarily in the background
when he issued his icOnOclastic edict in 126, one
of the most curious episodes in the history OF the
BYZANTINE Empire; and it was fully sixty years
before the Nicene Council reversed his law anu
through the exertions of a woman Irene IL was
once more rendered possible to produce images
and among them images of the Virgin In the
Middle Aces also we have for long time to reckon
,r;th tho monastic prejudice which regarded woman
nc ian instrument of damnation, work oil thc
devil" But. save for occasional threats of eclipse
woman has shone in the heavens the Drlght par
ticular lliminary of the artist from the very De-
ginning of things down. NJ Nachon mas his
no;nt of departure in the valley of the Nile. ana
surely in the bas-relicis of Isis when survive
there is preserved feminine type Of sufiiclenty
remote antiquity.
After the fashion of the French. the publishers
AZ the nresent volume announce that 1t is conse-
Grated" TO woman and is glOrification OF her
as the inspiration of genius the subject oil MASTER
peces the protectress of great artists ana as al
artist herself 1t is in the second OF these roies
that she brings most interest 10 NJ Nacn'h >
pages. The record of woman as maker vi di'
does not contain anything OF consequence Pilot u
the eighteenth century, during which Rosaio'
Carrcra and Vigee lie Brun exercised their Talents
TO the delight of their contemporaries anu Oh pos
terity The connoisseurs among women lorm
longer line. 1t begins with Semlramls al"
Stratonice, and includes between them ana so re-
cent a mtropess of the arts as Josephine. such
great names as those of Anne of Brittany ana
marguerite of Austria-the Marguerite of the
church at Brou-Louise of Savoy and the Mar
guerites of Angouleme and Navarro. Diana de
Poitiers and Catherine de Medics, and finally the
brilliant thronc of Renaissance Italians. throns
I'm which the Mantuan Isabella d Este is rivalled
in her taste by the enamatic lady at ferrara'
Lucrezia Borga. But after a tribute OF apprecla-
ton has been paid to these beneicent women !.
is plain that the bulk of such work as VI
Vachon's must be confined TO simply the counter
felt presentments of weman with which ancient
and modern art abounds. The hiatus between
the antique and the art of the Middle Ages DE-
comes painfully apparent in NJ. Vachons analysis
for he is occupied necessarily with question from
which ideas of beauty can never De Danlsneu' anu
the transition from the Venus de Milo or the
u 20 thn mi
statuary of awakening Europe is as disturbing to
a sense of beauty as it is sudden. The classic
Athenian era, a period to whose perfection OF
physical health NJ. Vachon sensiby attributes
much of what is noblest in the plastic art oil
Greece, gives place only too soon to the corrupt
and rapidly disintegrating time of Roman DONNA
ton. Then in the sitting atmosphere OF the
decadence the spirit of art is quenched ana as
civilization energies from the dark ages it enters
upon a laborious struggle to recover the iost
beauty iof antiquity.
OF the successive stages in the struggle In so
far as woman is involved in them. Nj. Vachon
gives a succinct and entertaining account. Now
and then the value OF his criticism is doubtful.
Michel Columbe, for example. Is an Important
parsonage of the French Renaissance and scuip-
tor of a good deal of originality ana power o"'
to aver of the figures of the great tomb at Nantes
nost beautiful feminine figures Of Florence. OF
Rome and even of Greece" is TO speak with more
natriotism than point. II is not evident, either,
that NJ Vachon's position in regard TO the early
Flemish painters is sound Though he finds ele-
ments of spirituality in Matsys, he appears 10
think that the exact observation oil the van EScKs
led them perilously near to realism oil gross hore'
Il seems to us that he does not make allowance
for the naivett which tempered the naturalism OF
the Van Eycks, Memling ana their emuIators as
IL did that of the primitive Italians. anu VINCE
leaves their realistic religious compositions sihe"
larlv free from sensualty. There are no other
points in NJ. Vachons book, however. TO whlch
excertion need be taken. The animus OF his
writing is rot as critical as il is eXpository. lie
has aimed TO set forth the development OF the
feminine influence ard type in art from the
earliest times to the latest, or very nearly the
latest and the broad lines on WHICH he has as
sumed that development to have proceeded arc
clearly and correctly shown If he sometimes mas
Frenchman's admiration for France ne Is SCARCE
IL TO be censured, for the Gallo genius has oc-
casonally been touched to fine achievement by the
spectac1e of womanly beauty. After Goujon is
once reached there are triumphs TO be ascribed 70
France of which some, Ike those OF what NJ
Vachon aptly calls lie steele de la grace, ike
those of Watteau Boucher, Fragonard, and Clodion,
are really saturated with the dellcacy OF the
feminine nature. He sagacously follows the sub
ject no further among the Frenchmen OF the pres
ent century than classicsts like David, Gerard
and Incres. a few of the romantic painters who
followed them, and one or two less easily classl-
fed artists like Carpeaux and Baudry His feeling
for France does not make NJ. Vachous review of
Italian art any the less intelligent and SYM
pathetic: and he writes informingly, though with
enforced brcvity, on the evolution of southern
painting from the pure young lovelncss of Botti-
celli, Ghirlandajo and Mantegna through the mira
cles OF. the Golden Age, the Gioconda Of Leonardo
and the Fornarina of Raphael. to the sophisticated
and flashing beauties of Titan, Veronese and, in
the last category of all, Caracci. 1t is on the
whole an impressive "glorifcation de la femme"
which is furnished by NJ. Vachon and though the
numerous illustrations distinctly below the
level of the best French work. this makes an in