Dictionary of Victorian Painters

Library Journal

A writer on and dealer in Victorian art, Wood has revised and enlarged into two volumes this third edition of Volume 4 in the six-volume series "Dictionary of British Art." The first book is a dictionary of painters with over 11,000 entries; the second book is well illustrated, with 750 black-and-white and 40 color plates containing an historical survey of Victorian art, defined as the period in English art from 1837 to 1901. The illustrations encompass everything from the fantastically imaginative to the Pre-Raphaelites, the social realists, Turner's pre-Impressionism, the end of Romanticism, landscape painting, etc. A catalog following this survey shows examples of many major works. Entries in the first book provide dates that an artist was working, professional affiliation, biography of exhibits, and, in the case of Turner, Rossetti, Ruskin, and other major figures, a bibliography. An asterisk in the dictionary of painters denotes the artists' representation in this catalog. There are many obscure painters here, with only one- or two-line descriptions, a comprehensiveness that should benefit curators, collectors, and dealers who need to authenticate a given artist as well as those studying the Victorian era. Wood describes the popular view of Victorian art, and his evaluation organizes the wealth of its offerings and documents its history. Together these books serve as a necessary, comprehensive, and readable reference source in the study of British art and as sales material for the market in Victorian painting. Recommended for public and special collections.Ellen Bates, New York