Black's dictionary of pictures : a guide to the best work of the best masters / selected and ed. by Randall Davies.

  • Randall Davies
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Black's dictionary of pictures : a guide to the best work of the best masters / selected and ed. by Randall Davies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/210
    lMiEFA( K Tup: l)est pictures of tlic l)est masters, tliose about wliich anybody who is interested in i)it:tures at all ought, or would like, to know something, are—with eomparati\'ely few exceptions— to lie found in public galleries in this country and on the Continent. I tescriptious and parth ulars ol these have hitherto onl\’ been lu ailable in the \ arious ollicial catalogiu‘s. or in innumerable separate volumes in art libraries; and the attem|)t is here made for the first time to print in a single \a)lume as many as are likelv to be of use or of Interest to the public at large. ’I’lie selection for this purpose of less than a thousand |)ictures, out of so many thousands, is of course open to criticism, both ff)r inclusions and exclusions. i!ut for the general ])ublic one must make some reasonable allowances, while for the critic there are still the catalogues and the innumerable sejiarale volumes on the sheh es. The aim of the descriptions has been to enable the reader to visualise the picture— whether he has seen it or whether he has not—rather than merely to identify it. The fijllowing jjoints will perhaps assist him: . I. The first thing is the size of the picture: without first knowing this the reader can form no idea in his mind of the general character of the work. This is therefore given after the title, the height always first and the breadth second, so that a mere glance at the figures will tell whether the picture is large or small, u|jright or oblong; in a few cases where the breadth greatly exceeds the height, the work is stated at the outset to be “an oblong.” Wb’th a very few exceptions ihe ^ize is given in metres. Roughly, a metre is 3 ft. 3 in.—and it is only a rough idea that is needed—and 0-30 is i ft. (S in., and so on.