Evening star., 1937-12-08
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
BY MARGARET GERMOND.
SIX CENTURIES OF FINE PRINTS.
BY Carl Zigrosser. New York: Co.
Vici-Frede

Vici-Friede.
In a note concerning his recent and
now famous book, "The Arts" Hendrix
Willem Van Loon expressed the belief
that the only way to improve the taste
Of nation is to expose It's people, and
particularly its children, as much as
possible to that which is true product
Of divine inspiration and honest crafts
manship." The American people have
been slow to grasp the significance OF
art as fundamental factor in the de-
velopment of the spiritual and social life
of a great nation. Criticism has been
heaped upon them for their failure, as
a race, to understand or even to appre-
ciate the works of great masters that
are as familiar to the small chill
dren of other lands as their toys And
yet the reasons for this general lack
OF cultural wisdom are for the most part
logical If considered from a purely his
torical angle.
The truth is that the American people
have been too much occupied with the
job of nation building and money max
ing to think very much about exposing
themselves and their children to the true
products of divine inspiration and hon
est craftsmanship Life in the early
settlement was not so constituted that
any one OF the fine arts might be en-
Joyed. When in later years the business
OF founding a new country was in full
swing, the cultural development that had
barely begun was almost lost while the
New World devoted itself to the preser-
vation of its freedom.
In the great industrial era which wit
messed the building of railroads, the
opening OF factories and. the extension
OF frontiers, man power and money were
required and the necessary scattering of
the population meant that with the ex-
ception of literature there were few
mediums for the enjoyment of any OF
the fine arts.
And then America went money mad.
Opportunities for acquiring wealth were
limitless and the desire to make money
became an obcession. Art and beauty
were of no consequence except to the
comparatively small group of people who
had never been separated from cultural
surroundings.
But the past few years have witnessed
an extraordinary development of artistic
taste in this country that reaches from
the isolated mountain hut to the wealth.
~~Ns ~>SfiA>c
alike to the poor and the rich, the
back-country family and the resident of
great metropolis an opportunity to
hear and to become familiar with the
masterpieces of the worlds greatest COM
poserS. 1t was inevitable that the whole
range OF fine arts would eventually reap
the benefits of this modern invention,
for they are linked by common bond
OF human endeavor to give tangible ex-
preston to that which is beautiful
Hearing beautiful music created a de-
mand for knowledge about the works
and about the men who wrote them. Many
fine books were written and eagerly
read by thousands who had never before
known what constituted a symphony, or
what its composer intended it to express.
Appreciation and understanding of one
art invariably breeds desire TO know
something about other forms of art.
The convert to great music looks at
picture and sees in it something more
significant than mere form and color
Who painted it and why? If it is re-
production from a famous work, what
made it famous? If in the past a lack
OF interest in these things has resulted
in few publications of an enlightening
nature, there is today no dearth of
printed sources of knowledge within the
means OF any one who can buy book.
Prints" in the realm of art, are the
most common and the least appreciated
and understood of any of the decorative
furnishings that bedeck American homes.
The very cheapneSs that has made them
easy to possess has also been responsible
to large degree for diSmisSing them
from any particular thought beyond
their adaptability to wall space. Yet
they are the result of one of the most
fascinating of all arts and they are as
varied as the assortment of base ma
terialS upon which an artist can draw
design. Some of the worlds most
famous artists have produced many
masterpieces on wood, "copper" silver,
bronze, zinc, stone and other bases COM
monty adaptable for the printing press.
In telling the fascinating and ro-
mantle story of fine prints, Mr. Zigrosser
sketches the earlier history of the art,
devotes full chapter each to the Gothic
and the Renaissance periods and deals
fully and entertainingly with the works
and artists of the seventeenth, eight
zenith, nineteenth and twentieth CEN
turleS. There is also a chapter on the
fine prints of Oriental artists. The
many varieties of prints and the meth
ods by which they are produced are de-
scribed in terms that the layman will
find understandable and that will make
1t possible to identify upon sight a dry
point, an etching, an aquatint, a stipple
engraving or any one of the many varie-
ties of prints.
Five hundred illustrations occupy one
half of the book and they form, as Mr..
ZlgrosSer explains, an anthology of six
centuries of fine prints They have been
selected by the author in the belief that
they are typical and representative of
the manifold activities of the graphic
arts and in an effort to maintain
balance between the attitude of the
historian and that of the artist. He says
also that an attempt has been made to
project prints against the background
OF history, to Synchronize their produc-
ton with that of other arts and sciences,
with the events of war and Statecraft,
economic and social life; in short, to try
to see them as their contemporaries
saw them as well as in the perspective
of time" There is, says Mr.. Zigrosser,
"a give-and-take between the artist and
his age; he leaves an impress on his
contemporaries, and contemporary in
f1uences leave their impress on him. All
this is mirrored dramatically in his
works, more especially in such medium
as the print, which, being widespread