The San Francisco call., 1904-06-05

eu. he went straight forward in the
face Of all kinds of defamation, crush
ing his enemies with a tongue and pen
OF extraordinary sharpness and wit
and he has won. In the matter of in
huence upon the art Of all countries
in the latter half of the past century,
scarcely the like is found in any per-
iod. Velasquez himself has had no
greater influence, nor Van Dyck, nor
the Barbizon School"
As a final word let il be said that,
far from depreciating the worth OF Mr.
Pattison's judgment on art matters or
his manifestly profound knowledge of
all the painters since Leonardo, it must
be maintained that he has here written
book which can have little appeal to
one not himself more than a neophyte
in the high mysteries of art Had he
restrained himself to a survey of the
last decade or the last century of art
he would doubtless have written some
thing open to wider field of appre-
citation.
(Herbert 3. Stone & Co., Chicago)
The old aphorism that "ridicule is
the test of truth" must have been in
the minds of Arthur Bartlett Maurice
and Frederick Taber Cooper when they
determined to throw upon the record
of a hundred harried years of politics
the light of their History OF the Nine
teenth' Century in Caricature." For
if ridicule does indeed force truth to
put on the whole armor of light and
come forth to the fray 70 form of it
can be quite so quick a spur c. so
CALLING an incentive to vIndication as
the sneer that lies in the twisted line
and exaggerated emphasis of this buf-
foon Of art, the cartoon. review Of
the caricature of the last hundred years
is, then, the record of a century of
stinging smarts. suffered both by ma
tions and individuals at the hands Of
this agent, sometimes a test of truth,
indeed, often a sadly perverted, bitter
ly malignant instrument OF evil. Even
a book on the influence of caricature
with less original material in its pages
than that of Maurice and Cooper
would be profitable reading.
The authors, recognizing Hosarth as
the father Of English caricature and
the precursor of all the stalwart breed
Of men whose pencils were to be couch
ed as lances, find the significance of
his satires upon life and manners with
out the province of their work and
give to James Gillray.f his successor
and imitator, the largest measure of
their attention, since it was Gillray who
first made the cartoon an element of
strong political significance. Despite
the horrid conceits of this british fell
low, the reflection OF his depravity and
insane imaginings in his drawings, the
authors show that his flaming car
toons, directed against the power of
the Napoleonic regime, did much TO fan
into white heat the wrath and antag-
onism of England against Bonaparte.
Strangely unlike the caricature of the
present day, which stings by wit, not
invective, Gillray's work summoned to
it's aid every element of foulness and
loathsomeness that might make its
scurrility more enhanced.
None the less gentle, but endowed
with a more delicate finesse of dis
courtesy, were the Frenchmen who
made King Louis Philippe's life bur-
den for him-Philipon Grandville and
Daumier. We read that because one
of the keen-eyed satirists saw in the
face of the citizen King" a resem-
blance to the humble pear, from that
day forward the distracted Bourbon
could see nothing but lie Poir" star
ing from the pages of every petit
journal" Nor did Napoleon, "the
Little" fare better than his predeces-
sor in Office when once his power be-
gan to slip in the dark days of the war
with Prussia.
The founding of Punch and its SUBJ
seQuent influence under the clever mas
terry Of Leech and Tenniel seems to
prove a subject rather beyond the pow
ers OF the authors; they give only a
superficial review Of Punch's cartoons
In the Crimean and Franco-Prussian
war and pass on to a consideration of
the growth of oAricature in our own
country-a field exploited far more
happily. From an outline Of the found
ing Of Puck and Judge the authors
trace the power Of the American oar
toon through political campaigns. wars
and international episodes until we are
quite convinced that we could do with
out 1t no easier than we could sacri-
nee street cars, sign boards, porcelain
tubs, or any OF the other modern con-
veniencee.
CDodd, Mead & Co.. New York; illus