Gainsborough paintings and drawings by John HayesReview by: Jack Perry BrownARLIS/NA Newsletter, Vol. 4, No. 1 (DECEMBER 1975), p. 11Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27945543 .

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notably John W. Reps' The Making of Urban America

(Princeton, N.J., 1965), have superseded it in providing the historic overview of the physical development of urban America which Stokes had originally intended as the purpose for his collection and its catalogue. As a set of specific images of American cities, however, the Phelps Stokes collection can hardly be rivalled in breadth or in quality, and as a collection catalogue the work under review is admirable for its thoroughness and accuracy. It is a valuable resource for anyone doing serious research into American urban history, and no doubt libraries and individuals who would find it useful now missed it the first time around. The price is not

cheap, but this is at least partially explained by the fact that the market for such a decidedly specialized and scholarly reference work is not very large.

?Pamela Parry Columbia University

Color Theory: A Guide to Information Sources. Edited

by Mary Buckley. Assistant Editor, David Baum. (Vol. 2 in the Art and Architecture Information Guide Series). Detroit, Gale Research Company, 1975. 173p. $18.00 LC 73-17517 ISBN 0-8103-1275-1

Color Theory, a selective bibliography with enthusiastic annotations, contains entries for book material as well as for a few exhibition catalogs. Starred entries are items that are highly recommended for beginning col lections on color theory.

The book is divided into twenty-two sections, and includes chapters on architecture, aesthetics, colorimetry and education. One problem with the book's organiza tion is that there is considerable overlap from one con cept to the next. Unfortunately, color is one of those topics which defy rigorous division. Chapter 6, for example, is entitled "Color: Design." It contains one cross-reference to a Nicolas. Pevsner book, the full ci tation of which is found under the chapter entitled "Color: Architecture." The rest of the former "chap ter" consists of two "see-also" references. The concept of color design could have easily appeared in the index only, since the index is used for other specific concepts. However, even the index is not very precise. It lists "color mysticism" and refers the reader to page 51. Page 51 contains four and a half different entries, but it is difficult to determine if all these entries deal with this topic. If each individual entry had been numbered, the editorial intention woudl have been clear.

The section which stands up best deals with artists' concepts. The traditional colorists, such as Seurat and Turner, are included as are more recent painters?Josef Albers and Barnett Newman?although a noteworthy colorist, Rothko, is omitted. While artists' concepts of color theory could easily be the subject of a bibliogra phy itself, this section seems a bit skimpy.

As with the first volume of this Art and Architecture Information Guide Series, reviewed in the ARLIS/NA

Newsletter, v. 3, no. 3, April 1975, Supplement p.3, the waste of paper in this book is appalling. Each of the twenty-two sections is headed by a title page, but there are no entries printed on the verso. The margins are excessively wide, and the index entries are spaced beyond what is necessary for legibility. At $3.95, this book would have been a reasonable addition to library collections, but no amount of additional paper will

make the book worth $18.00. (Volume 1 of this series also cost $18.00, but at least it was 87 pages longer!) It is unfortunate that Gale Research Company picked such a formidable format for an otherwise modest book.

?llene Silverman

University of South Florida

Hayes, John. Gainsborough paintings and drawings, Lon don, Phaidon, 1975. 232p., illus. $30.00 LC 76-721 ISBN 0-7148-1639-6

This is the latest volume in the publisher's uniform but undefined series of monographs by well-known authors on well-known British artists; Ellis Waterhouse on Joshua Reynolds and Basil Taylor on John Constable have ap peared in the same format. John Hayes, former director of the London Museum and now head of the National Portrait Gallery, has had a long and productive affair with Gainsborough. He authored the excellent catalogue raisonn? of the drawings (Drawings of Thomas Gains borough, 2v., Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre, Ltd., 1971, $50.00) and an exhaustive analysis of the prints (Gainsborough as Pnntmaker, Yale Univer sity Press, 1972, $20.00). The current book draws on work in progress for a catalogue raisonn? of the pain tings and the earlier volumes on the drawings.

Hayes' 40-page introduction discusses Gainsborough's personality, technique, the milieu in which he worked and evaluates his accomplishments. The essay is lucidly and elegantly written and reveals Hayes' total command of the primary and secondary sources. Following this is the mainstay of work, 175 plates (twelve in color), which are chronologically arranged, except for some that have been pulled out of order for comparisons. The next section, "Notes on the Plates?Gainsborough's Develop

ment as an Artist," again in chronological order, provides detailed comments on each work.

Unfortunately, the plates are printed on a coated stock which managed to look dirty and age-yellowed in a new book. Gainsborough's works are difficult to

photograph, and the quality of plates that Hayes has assembled varies greatly. All in all, the black and white illustrations are less than satisfactory: the majority are dull, dead grey masses surrounded by dirty paper. Al

though the color plates fare better, they tend to be more red than is desirable.

It is in the commentary on each plate, the meat of the book, that we see Gainsborough grow and develop in subject, style and technique. The discussion of the

drawings adds little to previous publications. This clearly is not the author's intention. Hayes has tried to give a view of Gainsborough as a man and to provide a coherent selection of his paintings and drawings, thus outlining his particular genius. Within these limits, Hayes succeeds.

?Jack Perry Brown

The Encyclopedia of Victoriana, edited by Harriet

Bridgeman and Elizabet Drury. Macmillan, 1975. 368p. $27.50 LC 75-10728

Recent scholarly and commercial concerns with unex

plored historical periods have created a renewed ap preciation for a body of artifacts whose design has been previously disdained as eclectic and undisci

plined. The Victorian era (ca. 1837-1901) saw the ascendant British and American middle classes re

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