A FEW artists, like a few wines, mature very slowly.
France's Jacques Villon, vintage 1875, is a case in point. On view at Manhattan's Lucien Goldschmidt bookstore last week was Villon's latest and perhaps greatest claim to a permanent bin in the wine cellar of art history. His new triumph: a $350-a-copy edition of Virgil's Eclogues, illustrated with 25 superb color lithographs.
Though Villon has made more than 600 prints in his long career, the Eclogues was his first major try at book illustration. Like all lasting illustrations, his works liberate rather than confine the imagination of the reader. He presents no bluntly...
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