NOTICES OF BOOKS 143

Iphitos-amphora is republished and a pretty hydria with women at a fountain pleases the eye. New photographs of the b.-f. and r.-f. amphora signed AvSoKiSts erroetrcv make certain what seemed likely from Bienkowski's publication, that it is not from the same hand as the other Andokides-vases ; it stands closer to the Menon-amphora in Philadelphia and the name of Psiax may possibly fit it. Of the red-figured vases, part of the well-known Dioxippos-cup, and details of the cup signed by the painter Aison are presented in excellent photographs. Leroux rightly mentions the name of Hieron when discussing No. 154 ; it is indeed by the painter Makron who painted most of the Hieronian vases. On the other hand, there is no reason for connecting No. 152, a charming athlete cup, with the work of Euphronios or any of his employes. The word ' atelier' is used too loosely in one or two places ; Nos. 169 and 170 are not connected, nor does it serve any good purpose to say that the so-called Nolan amphorae may come from a single workshop ; they cannot : see also p. 95 on No. 170. Hermonax and Polygnotos are still grouped together (p. 74) although Ducati has already protested with good reason. To speak generally, the introductory passages to the several sections, though they contain acute observations, are uneven and not quite sober enough for a catalogue. Is a youth with earrings possible (p. 107), and can the outline of the hair be incised on No. 173 (p. 97) ? The photographs are mostly very fair and some uncommonly good ; but it was not incumbent on the author to depreciate other methods of reproducing vase-drawings (pp. x-xi). The ideal publication of a vase is not a photograph, nor a series of photographs; but a series of photographs accompanied by a careful drawing. The camera is always stupid if always honest; and if honesty cannot be said to lie, yet it often gives false information : the camera cannot distinguish in certain cases between the brush-lines of the artist, accidental scratches, dirt, or smudges, restorations, and the incised sketch-lines: only the student or the artist can do that consistently, holding the vase in human hands and scanning it with human eyes. It is to be hoped that before long we shall have fuller publications of some of the finer vases in Madrid : the krater with Perseus and Medusa (169), the soldiers at the well (197) ; the delicate hydria'198 (two women see-sawing, Eros in the middle) ; and the r.-f. hydria of b.-f. shape published by Ossorio, No. 160 in Leroux, which must be a charming example of this archaic vase-form : the figure on the left, it may be added, is surely meant for a younger girl : to speak of the old ' law of isocephaly' seems gratuitous. Though the book has faults, it is a most respectable performance and the author merits our gratitude. J. D. B.

The Childhood of Art, or the Ascent of Man ; a Sketch of the Vicissitudes of his Upward Struggle, based chiefly on the Relics of his Artistic Work in Prehistoric Times. By H. E. SPEARING. Pp. xxx+584; 482 illustrations in text, 4 plates, 1 map. London : Kegan Paul, 1912. 21s. Mr. Spearing's elaborate title prepared us for the perusal of a work of remarkable idiosyncrasy, nor were we disappointed. With so much of the book as relates to the relics of man's artistic work in prehistoric times we were sufficiently well pleased, but we could well have dispensed with Mr. Spearing's manifold worries about Man's Upward Struggle. If, indeed, the author had strictly confined himself to the Childhood of Art, and not bothered about the Ascent of Man, he would have written a much better book, and a more readable one. Mr. Spearing is greatly given to the insertion in his work of superficial political platitudes, which take up a deal of space and add to the great length and inordinate weight of the book. What is the use of such a passage as the following, taken at random (p. 201) : ' If art is the expression of a nation's feelings and aspirations, what form can we expect to be evolved by a 144 NOTICES OF BOOKS people whose upper class were (aic) mainly actuated by a coarse desire for domination and for more material luxuries while the rest had but a sense of utter carelessness, or perhaps of dumb despair ?' This is amusing to those who know what a light-hearted, joyful people the Ancient Egyptians really were. And this : ' Freedom and originality were as unwelcome to the Pharaohs as to the Roman Emperors or to any other autocratic rulers. How could art flourish under such conditions 1' (p. 230). Mr. Spearing has forgotten the Greek tyrants and the mediaeval Italian rulers; and how does he know that the ' Minoan' princes whose subjects produced the wonderfully untrammelled and naturalistic art of prehistoric Crete were not as dreadfully despotic as any horrid Pharaoh of them all? In saying this we fear that Mr. Spearing will undoubtedly class us among those ' men with mediaeval minds ' who ' still sing the praises of such degeneration, and would have us worship the pretentious falsities which are evolved spontaneously in an atmosphere of cruelty and oppression ' (ibid). Most annoying of them, and in the twentieth century, too : but let us turn from this harrowing subject to the Childhood of Art. Mr. Spearing gives us one of the best collections of illustrations of early art that has yet appeared, ranging from the palaeolithic cave-paintings of Altamira and Cogol (some reproduced in colour) to—we do not know where the ' childhood ' comes in now— the masterpieces of Greek art. He illustrates many things that are not well known, and the illustrations are all good and well chosen. But here again redundancy is apparent, and we do not know why many of the Egyptian and Greek examples are included in a history of the ' Childhood of Art.' Does Mr. Spearing consider all art infantile because it is ancient ? all ancient art infantile ? Human art has had many lives ; it has died and been born again times out of number. Our author describes ancient art in Europe and the Near East only, and does not by any means confine himself to its childhood. As a history of ancient western art the book will be very useful on account of its illustrations. So far as the letter- press is concerned, Mr. Spearing 'knows a good thing when he sees it,' his criticism is often suggestive, he has read widely, and, so far at any rate as Egypt and prehistoric Greece are concerned, he knows his authorities. But sometimes he blunders. On p. 355, in respect of the Minoans he says that ' no pictures of their ships have yet been found nor any representatives of actual fighting.' In a note on pp. 523-4 he corrects this so far as to note the seal-impression of a horse on ship-board, but holds still to his idea, forgetting that other representations of vessels exist. And as for fighting, he forgets the silver vase fragment from Mycenae and the gold rings. Again, on p. 446 he talks of ' the early efforts' of the northern continental Greeks as 'so similar to those of the Cretans that we need not do more than mention the proofs of their existence which have recently been brought to light by the excavations in Boeotia by Professor Tsountas, Dr. Sotiriadhis ('Ecprmepis ap% (sic), 1908, p. 63), and in Thessaly by Messrs. Droop, Wace, and Thompson ' If there is anything more obvious than another in prehistoric Greek archaeology it is the fact of complete dissimilarity between the north-Greek art and that of the Aegaean and Crete : the two belong to two radically distinct artistic worlds. Errors such as these must detract from the usefulness of Mr. Spearing's text. His chapter on later Greek art is weak, and seems to contain nothing particularly original or suggestive.

Malta and the Mediterranean Race. By R. N. BRADLEY. Pp. 336, 54 plates. London : Fisher Unwin, 1912. 8s. 6d. net. Had Mr. Bradley confined himself to describing the results of recent excavations in Malta and collecting Maltese legends he would have written a very useful book. His photographs are good, and he has seen something of the work of excavation at first hand. But unluckily he has views on the ' Mediterranean Race,' and has made the excavations