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This article focuses on the show titled "Fifteen Americans," held at the Museum of Modern Art in the U.S. in 1952. Enough of the work of each of fifteen artists is displayed to give a fair sample of recent accomplishment. The author talks about some of those fifteen artists whose work seems to him to be impressive. Artist Herbert Ferber is admirably lucid on the space-piercing propensities of sculpture he admires, Herbert Katzman, Herman Rose and William Baziotes are all refreshingly modest, Irving Kriesberg is engagingly clever and Edward Corbett's statement is a model of conciseness.

The article discusses the psychology of arts, the history of art, through the book "The Psychology of Art," vol. 1, "Museum Without Walls," and vol. 2, "The Creative Act." The book is written by André Malroux. Every page of this magnificent work gives evidence of a profound mind nourished by a rich sensibility. It is mentioned in the book that an artist is endowed with sublime imagination, he is a man of destiny, he is an artist, a free man, he shapes history rather than passively mirrors it. He is above all an inventor of visual forms. The article contains some of the most distinguished discussions of art ever written. As far as the apparent organization of this article is concerned, the author seems as perverse as he is brilliant.

This article presents information about various picture books. The picture book "Romanesque Art," by Juan Eduardo Cirlot deals only with the special, but superb, development of Romanesque painting and sculpture in Catalonia. Most of the examples are in a museum in Barcelona, Spain. The book "Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin," by John Rewald presents a history of seven crucial years in modern painting, from 1886 to 1893. It is a sequel to the author's unsurpassed study of Impressionism.

The article focuses on the early Spanish and Italian paintings. It is stated that the Catalan frescoes from Santa Maria de Mur are closely allied to Byzantine style. The paintings include the "Marriage of St. Catherine" which is generally attributed to Barna da Siena, the most gifted and original follower of Simione Martini. The "Virgin of Humility," by Giovanni di Paolo, signified how little Siena cared for the Florentine Renaissance.

The article features the origin and development of Baroque and nineteenth century painting collection at the Wadswoth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. It was revealed that the collection of Baroque paintings were a major strength of the Museum since the collection acquisition policy of A. Everett Austin Jr. Some of the Museum's owned painting were the "Tiger Hunt," by Ruben and The Resurrection," by Van Dyck.

The article presents the art works in Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. The museum has steadfastly insisted on fine condition and high quality in its acquisitions. Most of its early Renaissance examples were acquired between 1930 and 1944, when more works from this period were on the market. Among the art works in the museum include "the Kneeling Angels," "Madonna and the Child," by Luca della Robbia, and "Virgin and Child," by Lorenzo Monaco.

Presents several letters to the editor. Atrocities faced by African-Americans in the northern states of the U.S.; Living conditions of the African-Americans in the U.S.; Remarks on the book "African Sculpture Speaks."

The article focuses on the book "Contemporary Painters," by James Thrall Soby. In this useful group of essays on today's and yesterday's painters Soby avoids areas adequately covered in other people's writing. He restudies artists like Charles Demuth whose work has long deserved renewed and careful attention. He reconsiders half-forgotten developments in Italy, where a new ferment is discernible, and later plays off Italian futurism against Wyndham Lewis's vorticism and its echoes in recent English painting.

This article presents information on the book "John Marin," by MacKinley Helm. This monograph is advertised as "the first comprehensive book on Marin, recognized today as America's greatest living painter." It is true that the Marin bibliography has consisted up to now of critical reviews and essays, and the excellent catalogue of the Mann exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Last spring Boston, Massachusetts' Institute of Contemporary Art staged an important retrospective Maria show and the present book, while in no sense a catalogue, serves as a welcome postlude.

The article presents information on the book "Matisse, a Social Critique," by Alexander G. Romm. This little book is advertised as "a Marxist interpretation of Matisse's tireless search for plastic expression, his hedonism, his color, and his monumentality." First published in Moscow ten years ago, it betrays a fundamental conflict between ideology and sensibility that the intervening years have only served to aggravate. On every page, it is perfectly clear that Romm has a highly developed sense of the art in painting, the language of expression in line, light and dark, shape, color, and space.

The article discusses about the book "Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America," by Selden Rodman. This beautifully designed monograph appears a little over a year after Horace Pippin's death. It reproduces nearly half of Pippiri's one hundred paintings in large clear plates, four of them in color. It is not extreme to say that Horace Pippin is our best "primitive" as well as our best Negro painter to date. On both counts, however, the competition is limited, though by no means unimpressive.

The article focuses on the book "Modern Painters," by Lionello Venturi. In the book, Venturi considers the eight artists who, he believes, affected most strongly the course of painting from the French Revolution to the Franco-Russian War. To each he devotes an essay filled with erudition, visual sensibility, and wisdom. This book is not a history of early nineteenth-century painting, or an introduction for the layman, or a documentary sourcebook. It offers only a series of critical estimates; yet with the possible exception of Henri Focillon's two-volume survey it is the most provocative, cultivated, and discerning synthesis of its field yet published. Of the eight painters selected, one is Spanish, one is English, and six are French. Venturi believes that the history and the criticism of art necessarily merge, that each justifies the other.

Three years ago, what had become a fusty sampling of all kinds of painting being done the world over took a radically new turn. Gordon B. Washburn, the new director of the Department of Fine Arts of the Carnegie Institute, in 1952 selected for the Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting what he felt--was most expressive of a period characterized by rapid flux and change. Contemporaneity was for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the keynote for the development of a city which must never forget her role in the present, however wisely her citizenry might also preserve the achievements of a human past. Thus Washburn offered the hope, rather archly perhaps, that the exhibition might play a part in upholding in artistic terms Pittsburgh's great industrial tradition.

This article presents information on several books. "Drawings and Watercolors," by Vincent Van Gogh, "Drawings by the Holbein Family," by Edmund Schilling, and "Francisco Goya," by Robert Stoll, are some of the books mentioned. The titles listed above, are the most recent additions to the two series of Holbein Art Books, entitled respectively Watercolors and Pastels, and Drawing Books. The former, larger in format and containing thirty-two color plates, is the more expensive, but both series are moderately priced for what they offer. The plates in both series are excellent and the texts combine scholarship with insight. Moreover, there has been a plethora of picture books on paintings, with no account given to the painters' drawings and almost none to the process by which a work of art emerges.

The article focuses on two books "The Art and Architecture of Russia," by George Heard Hamilton and "The Moscow Kremlin," by Arthur Voyce. Since most of the bibliography on Russian art and architecture is in the Russian language and access to the original works is impossible to most Westerners, knowledge of this vast field has been as secluded as Russia itself. These two volumes make a considerable contribution, the first through a broad survey, and the second through a detailed study at the very heart of Russian culture. Both of them required exhaustive research in Russian publications and a great effort to assemble adequate illustrative material. Both are exercises in objective scholarship, both are primarily descriptive in character, and neither carries the history of its subject beyond the revolution of 1917.

This article presents information about the book "John Sloan: A Painter's Life," by Van Wyck Brooks. This book is not a book on art criticism but the record of a man. On the whole it is the best kind of book on painter John Sloan. For it is possible to conclude that the man outstripped the artist in Sloan as a contributor to American culture. The art of Sloan, being primarily illustrative, lends itself to appraisal by a man of letters. As a biography this book fills a much needed gap. That Sloan became a painter at all is testimony to two things: the inspiration of Robert Henri and his own courage.

Presents letters to the editor related to the U.S. politics, published in the January 29, 1955 issue of the periodical "The Nation." Reference to an article by Nathaniel Peffer on international relations of the U.S. with China; Information on the research conducted by the United States Information Agency on rights of a group of Filipino.

The article discusses arts facilities. Another section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has reopened. with results which may on this occasion be hailed as magnificent. On the ground floor to the rear several period rooms have been installed, and they are connected by displays of related furniture, decorative arts, and second-line paintings which belong in period settings but do not stand out from them by force of sheet quality. Even in the field of interior decoration, this difference can be observed.

The article focuses on the book "The Paintings of J.A.D Ingres," by the author Georges Wildenstein. The present volume as a whole does not measure up to the standard previously set in these monographs. Its one hundred and twenty glossy pages are less adequate than at first they appear to be. Value contrasts have been forced, with a consequent loss in halftone ranges. For Ingres this means a fatal diminution of the plastic power of his taut forms. Although the catalogue of Ingres work in oil is an admirably professional job, it has its limitations.

The article discusses books and authors. "The paintings of Francisco De Zurbaran," by Martin S. Soria profiles the works of the renowned painter. Painter Francisco De Zurbaran ranks with painters Georges de La Tour and Piero della Francesca among old masters whose art was so austere that it took the twentieth century to rediscover them. In Zubaran's case, the very austerity which led to his early recognition as the most significant of all purely Spanish painters prior to Francisco Goya seems to have caused his eclipse.

This article presents information on the books "Art and Architecture in France, 1500-1700," by Anthony Blunt; and "Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830" by John Summerson. The two books make a good pair. They form the third and fourth volumes of the Pelican History of Art. Both exemplify art history in its best sense. Blunt's book fills a prominent gap in English-language histories of art. Much has been discovered in the past twenty years about French art and architecture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and for the first time these efforts have been adequately brought together.

This article covers a miscellaneous group of small art exhibitions. It includes a selection of early works by the painter Winslow Homer. A score of small oils, water colors, and drawings, all from the period 1865-80, give a sympathetic view of this American master at his best. The Sidney Janis Gallery is celebrating its fifth anniversary with an exhibition of some thirty paintings sold to museums and private collectors, and the catalogue extends the number through its excellent reproductions to sixty. The artists represented are primarily European, and all of them are twentieth century masters.

This article presents several books related to arts. "Art Treasures of the National; London," by Philip Hendy is a beautifully made book brilliantly illuminated with hundred color plates of works selected from what is usually regarded as the finest collection of paintings in the world, judged in terms of quality and of coverage of all the major European schools. "Benjamin Henry Latrobe," by Talbot Hamlin is a scholarly and readable account of the career of the originator of Greek Revival architecture in the United States.

This article focuses on several books on fine arts. "Gian Lorenzo Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque," by Rudolf Wittkower is first monograph in English about the sculptor who was probably the most prolific and influential of any in history. In other languages no full-dress treatment of this major luminary has appeared for a generation, though Bernini scholarship in the form of articles has been active. "American Painting From the Armory Show to the Depression," by Milton W. Brown is a thorough historical treatment of painting in the U.S. between 1913 and 1929.

This article focuses on the book "Norway: Paintings From the Stave Churches." This volume, the fifth in the luxurious UNESCO series, is perhaps the most interesting because it opens up a field almost unknown except to a few scholars. While the wooden stavkirker and their carved portals have been widely published, the Gothic paintings on their simple vaults and their flat altar-frontals have not. They strike a curious note in their utterly indigenous architectural context, for their art is strongly rooted in European, especially English Gothic sources.

The article presents information about several books related to sociology, and art. The fiction book "The Loved and the Unloved," by Thomas Hal Philips," is a lean novel of childhood hate and adult murder that generates considerable impact with few flourishes. Although violence is the core of Phillips's book, the discipline of his prose creates emotional and structural tension. The book "Standing Room Only," by Karl Sax Beacon is a neo-Malthusian version of world overpopulation. The other book "African Art," by Werner Schmalenbach Macmillan is about an survey of its field primarily sculpture interpreted in terms of social function and illustrated by some 150 plates of finest quality, sixteen of them in color.

This article presents a brief information on the book "Aspects of Chinese Painting," by Alan Priest. Several of the fifteen essays it contains have appeared in the museum's bulletin, but they have been revised for the present publication. are entirely new. All of them are concerned primarily, but not exclusively, with examples owned by the Metropolitan, whose magnificent collections in this field are themselves a tribute to Priest's discrimination. Four fine color plates give some taste of the subtlety of the originals, and fifty good half-tone cuts point up the brilliance of Priest's criticism.

This article presents an overview of various related art. Some of them are, "Modern Prints and Drawings," "Water Colors," "Oceanic Art," "Realism in Art," "Signs and Symbols in Christian Art," and others.

This article presents the author's views about artist Henri Matisse. The artist's true function was exemplified. For him creation was discovery and invention became revelation. His aim, consistently stated, was to please but in pleasing he shaped a world that turned out to be real. In 1954 it is easy to observe that Matisse's color is part of the vocabulary of modern experience Stage design, textiles, fashion, advertising and interior decoration all bear witness to his impact. A true' disciple of the early Manet, he restored to painting the domination of color conceived in planes.

This article presents information on the book "Modern Painting," translated by Stuart Gilbert. Since the reproductions are printed directly on the page and not hand-tipped on coarser stock as before, the color has been intensified to a dangerous degree in order to compete successfully with the glare of the surrounding white paper. The fear of many of the originals will seem an anti-climax to the viewer who first saw them jazzed up into super-posters, but these are conventions of the post black-and-white age to which the public will have to become adjusted by education and experience.

This article presents information on the book "Early Netherlandish Paintings," by Erwin Panofsky. Those who are acquainted with Professor Panofsky's writings, particularly his two-volume study of Albrecht Durer, will be prepared to spare no superlatives in estimating his newest work. Developed from the Charles Eliot Norton lectures which he delivered at Harvard in 1947-48, it offers an elaborate synthesis of the entire question of how Northern Gothic painting originated during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and how careers of the first great heroes evolved.

The article presents books and authors. Only existing complete surveys of the history of art are both some fifty years old, and neither is in the English language. The usefulness of "The Pelican History of Art" is indicated by these simple statements of fact. Its quality is assured by the choice of Nikolaus Pevsner as editor, who can be counted upon to select the most productive minds from the ranks of art historians and to bring their labors into general coherence. The forty-eight volumes projected, each the work of a single author, are scheduled to appear at the rate of four a year and will probably become the fundamental work on art.

This article focuses on the Pittsburgh International, which is under new management. It has new sponsors, and a new director, Gordon B. Washburn, chose the paintings. For the first time in its fifty-six-year history it offers not so much a cross-section of everything now being done as an indication of what the director believes is, valid in contemporary painting the world over. Like its predecessors, it is too large. To absorb the contents of 305 paintings takes more time than the morning and afternoon the author gave to it.