THE GRAY HELIOTYPES.

NOTHING can be learned from books on art which will take the place of the education given by daily access to real works of art. For this reason, all of us who are interested in art study - and these are not a few - have reason to rejoice on seeing the proofs of the first issue of Heliotypes from the Gray prints. About a dozen of these will be on sale, if not when this is read, at all events by the first of next week. The issue has been unexpectedly delayed by the fact that the prints cannot be removed from the Library, and after the photograph has been taken in Cambridge the impression is struck off in Boston without having the original at hand to guide the expert in fixing upon the required tint.

Of course, for two or three months to come, while this photographing is going on, the collection cannot be shown. But this will hardly be regretted when it is considered that the result will be a number of excellent reproductions to be had at cost, and which will help greatly towards our art-education, as we may have them continually about us.

All who are dissatisfied with the popular art productions which disfigure so many walls, in the shape of decidedly "unpleasant" females in most unadvisable attitudes, - now clinging or "wopsing" about a cross, and now simply "gawking" at vacuity, - may not at first quite sympathize with these admirable fac-similes. The above-mentioned females, currently called Faith, Charity, Hope, or Liberty, often have a surface prettiness that must not be sought in a real work of art. Rembrandt and Durer never made pretty pictures, any more than Shakespeare wrote "nice" poetry.

These Heliotypes will not meet with approbation from our chance visitors; these gentlemen will be much more likely to abuse us soundly for affectation. But if we sternly banish all lithographs from our rooms, in company with most chromos, and put these in their stead, we shall soon find an enjoyment before unknown to us in looking at these works of true art.

The reason why we have thus to cultivate and reform our taste from the beginning, is that our surroundings - excepting only where man has not interfered with "Dame Nature," to use the correct expression - are the reverse of artistic. The interior of most of our churches suggests as surely an ideally enlarged soap-box as the Cologne Cathedral interior calls up the vague mystery of a vast forest.

Among the first that will be issued are four engravings by Durer, two by Marc Antonio, and probably one by Mautegna. Three etchings will also be among the first: one portrait from Van Dyck's Iconographia, and two of Rembrandt's landscapes. These are selected with special reference to helping in art-study, by the Curator. An equal number, selected by the publisher, will be of this issue. They are mostly from Toschi's engravings after Correggio's frescos at Parma.

Durer's engraving of St. Jerome is surprisingly well reproduced, and does very great credit to the publisher's experts. The clearness of the impression is amazing. The table at which St. Jerome is reading recalls some of Eastlake's remarks about the absurdity of those in use at present. Durer evidently was not particularly occupied with St. Jerome as a saint; he merely wished to represent an old man absorbed in study, and took far more delight in giving in firm, strong lines all the details of a homely interior. The flood of light warms one's very heart, and the shagginess of the lion delights us nearly as much as it did the artist himself.

As the next in excellence of reproduction, the portrait from Van Dyck's Iconographia must be mentioned. It is wonderful that such success has been attained with an etching. Here we have what Van Dyck alone can give us, - the real nobleman. Durer's portrait of his old patron, Pirkheimer, is hardly less valuable than the foregoing.

A word ought to be said about each of this issue, but my space will only allow me to mention Marc Antonio's exquisitely graceful Cleopatra. We have almost Raphael himself here, for Marc Antonio was thoroughly imbued with his spirit, and worked under his eye. The superiority of the heliotype over the autotype process will be very apparent, in one instance at least, if you compare Durer's Nativity of this issue with the English autotype of the same engraving.

L. D.