American art

“ When we review the various forces now actively at work to hasten forward the progress of American art, we see that they are, with one or two exceptions, still immature; while, on the other hand, the sum of their influence is such as to prove that they are already sufficiently well established to give abundant promise of vitality, and of a career of success that seems destined to carry the arts to a degree of excellence never before seen in America. ”

“ Through much tribulation, much earnest faith, and enthusiasm for art, our early painters prepared the way for the national art of the future. They met only moderate appreciation in their native land at that time. But we owe much to them; and in our preference for present methods—which must in turn be superseded by others—let us not forget the honor due to the pioneers of American art. ”

“ EARLY AMERICAN ART. THE art of a nation is the result of centuries of growth; its crowning excellence does not come except when maturity and repose offer the occasion for its development. But while, therefore, it is yet too soon to look for a great school of art in America, the time has perhaps arrived to note some of the preliminary phases of the art which, we have reason to hope, is to dawn upon the country before long. ”

“ I look upon this as the natural talent of an American, and have no doubt that glories will be displayed by our sculptors unknown to classic art. The facts of our history, ideal and social, will be grand and of new import; it is perfectly natural to the American to mould in clay and carve in stone. The permanence of material and solid, relief in the forms correspond to the positiveness of his nature better than the mere ephemeral and even tricky methods of the painter,—to his need of motion and action, better than the chambered scribbling of the poet. ”

“ Shall not America, partly through the people being followed, partly led, by the art-seers, develop an art like that of the past, which, "by the very fact that it must speak to the soul of multi- tudes in a language prescribed by precise relations," thus having "its technical merits exalted, reached the lofty expression which reveals itself in fragments, the immortal footprints of bygone civilizations"? Shall she not by being true to her traditions and her destiny, her "manifest destiny," a democracy grand and great, develop an art such as the world has not yet seen ? ”

“ It is only when we take a retrospect of the whole field, and compare one generation with another, that we discern the vanishing point of one set of influences and the genesis of new schools, with the introduction of new branches of art culture in the community. Considering the progress of American art from this point of view, we find it divided most decidedly into periods, advancing with regular pace from one phase to another like the tints of a rainbow, shading off at the edges, but gradually becoming more intense. ”

“ The explanation is that few Europeans see our lively arts, which are almost secret to us, like the mysteries of a cult. Here the energy of America does break out and finds artistic expression for itself. Here a wholly unrealistic, imaginative presentation of the way we think and feel is accomplished. No single artist has yet been great enough to do the whole thing—but together the minor artists of America have created the American art. And if we could for a moment stop wanting our artistic expression to be necessarily in the great arts—it will be that in time—we should gain infinitely. ”

“ And yet a closer inspection into the history of American art enables us to detect in its growth the same rapid spasmodic action, when once a start is made in a certain direction, as in other traits of our national development. ”

“ It is certain, I think, that America will one day have a school of decorative art that will win the universal admiration of the world; but if this is ever to happen, it will be because she has developed an art that is wholly her own; an art that is purely American; an art whose symbols will be the American flora and fauna as seen by American eyes and felt through the American temperament.
There is only one path by which an individual or a nation can hope to attain to eminence in art, or even in the "arts and crafts"—and that path always leads direct to nature. ”

“ It has been a blessing, because individual expression has thus found a vent, and mannerism has not yet become a conventional net, so thrown around our art as to prevent free action and growth. The American art of the last two generations has resembled the restless activity of a versatile youth, who seeks in various directions for the just medium by which to give direction to his life-work. If there has been, on the whole, a national bias in one direction more than another, it has been for landscape-painting. ”

“ The prominent position they then occupied before the American public made their example and opinions of great importance with their countrymen, and undoubtedly contributed to suggest one of the most characteristic traits of American art, that is, the tendency to make art a means for telling a story, which has always been a prominent feature of English art. May we not also trace to English literature the bias which unconsciously led our painters to turn their attention to landscape with a unanimity that has until recently made our pictorial art distinctively a school of landscape painting? ”

“ Every one possessing any feeling for modernism must highly prize what American art and American literature have done and are doing for the directness, vividness, and intensity of presentation to our eyes or our imagination either of outward objects or the silent workings of character and inner sensations. ”

“ With such evidences constantly appearing before our eyes of the deep and noble feelings of the American heart, who can doubt that our civilization is a progressive one, our enlightenment equal? Who can doubt the capacity of the American people for good, or look with foreboding upon our future?
Another important sign of the times, as evincing our advancing civilization, is the revival of art in our midst. ”

“ At the same time new influences are entering into the national culture of æsthetics, and branches which have hitherto received little attention from our artists are coming rapidly into prominence, suggesting that we are about entering upon a third stage of American art. ”

“ Possibly it may also be of first importance to foreign visitors. For the phrase "American art" no longer raises a doubt. It is at last recognized that America has something of its own to offer the world,—a style developed within the last, two decades. ”

“ Instead of being discouraged, therefore, by the quality of the art we have already produced, we accept it as strong evidence that the American people have a decided natural turn for the arts, which only awaits a more favorable condition of the nation to reach a higher plane of excellence. ”

“ No, we lack not subjects for those who know how to see them; while nothing is more certain than the truth that a national art can only be founded and sustained by those who are wholly in sympathy with the influences of the land whose art they are aiding to establish. Those who are familiar with American art will easily recall a number of our artists, educated both at home and abroad, who have no difficulty in finding material around home, and at the same time take the lead among us in point of artistic strength. ”

“ ART IN AMERICA.An American artist might extract from such scenery as Church Butte and Echo Kanyon a system of architecture as original and national as Egypt ever borrowed from her sandstone ledges, or the North of Europe from the solemn depths of her fir forests. But Art does not at present exist in America; as among their forefathers farther east, of artists they have plenty, of Art nothing. ”

“ Here is a new people in the blessed state of having no traditions to shake off and from whom, therefore, some peppery wildness might be expected for the tickling of jaded palates. Behold, they are sturdily setting themselves to recover for art the things the others have thrown away! They are trying to revive the old fashion of thoughtful composition, the old fashion of good drawing, the old fashion of lovely color, and the old fashion of sound and beautiful workmanship.
This conservatism of American painting, however, is not of the kind that still marks so much of the painting of England. ”

“ It is much more advisable, I think, for the young artist to become imbued with the spirit of our own art, and to acquire a distinctively American style, before subjecting himself to the influence of the painters of the Old World. ”

“ It shows that we have deft hands and imaginative brains among painters of the country, and it shows, moreover, that we have publishers who are liberal and cultured enough to present their works in a handsome and luxurious form that will make them acceptable. 'American Painters' will adorn the table of many a drawing-room where art is loved, and where it is made still dearer from the fact that it is native."—New York Express. ”

“ In original and logical design, in brilliant colour that yet had the mellowness of a splendid wine, he expresses the modern faith in the world we see and makes it lovable. At last we welcome an art in accord with the finest of the ancient-modern tradition, as European critics have since declared; yet it remains American in provenance and in the air of unconscious honesty that has always been a characteristic of the good work of this country. ”

“ I believe I know something about their way of looking at the subject of art; and that I know, consequently, how art is regarded by about 99 per cent, of the fairly well-to-do and moderately rich in this country. My interest in the subject, enhanced by the opportunities I have mentioned, has naturally led me to take note of art in the American home, and of the light it throws on the art knowledge and esthetic sensitiveness of the American people. ”

“ We have today real American sculpture - work that savors of American soil - a splendid national expression.
Never before have so many remarkable works been brought together; and American sculpture is only in its infancy - born, one might say, after the Centennial Exposition of 1876.
The wholesome part of it all is that men and women are working independently in their expressions. We do not see that effect here of one man trying to fit himself to another man's clothing. The work is all distinctly individual. This individualism for any art is a hopeful outlook. ”

“ This is of the essence of the American idea, which has been, however, slow to subdue imagination, which is the very electric current of art, to its use by reason chiefly of the seeming discord between it and common life, and partly from the reluctance of the world to renounce its diet of highly colored court, heaven and fairy-land imagery ”

“ As one considers this field of American art, he is increasingly astonished to find how strikingly it exemplifies one of the leading traits of a national school in the entire originality and individuality with which each of our prominent landscapists of this period interprets nature, even when he has studied more or less in Europe. ”

“ Among these names are painters of a high and important order — painters who stand in the foremost rank of American art, and who unquestionably are greater than a score of English painters who receive very special critical biographies, some of which extend over columns. And yet — apparently for no other discernible reason than that they are Americans — they are given the briefest mention with no specific criticism. ”

“ But within the last few years the popular interest in art has grown so rapidly in the country—as indicated by the establishment of numerous art schools and academies, art galleries, and publications treating exclusively of art subjects, together with many other significant proofs of concern in the subject—that it seems safe to assume that the first preparatory period of American art, so brilliant in many respects, is about closing, and that we are now on the threshold of another, although it is only scarcely three centuries since the first English colonists landed on our shores. ”

“ Someone told me once: “America is a young nation. We are about a hundred years behind Europe. Our people have not developed yet the sense for beauty and art.” It is not so. America of the fifties of the last century knew the best in life, letters and art. But with the first great fortunes made during the early railroad boom some mysterious powers perverted the minds of America systematically; created in them the lust for sensation, for things of the minute. And today people are being fed with theatres and newspapers and libraries and music and styles, that they really do not want. ”

“ In all these artists we find more or less dexterity of execution and delicacy of sentiment, but are rarely impressed by a sense that any of them indicate great reserve force. In William W. Story this idea is more clearly conveyed. No American in the art world now occupies a more prominent position or shows greater versatility. ”

“ In the works of these painters we see abundant reason to believe in the permanent vitality of American landscape art, and evidence that it is not inclined to run in a conventional groove. Just so long as the artists who represent it continue to assert their individuality with such nerve and keen perception of the essential truths of nature, art is in a healthy and progressive condition. ”

“ Indeed, public taste in the United States has, in the last ten years, taken a leap forward which the mind of to-day cannot hope to measure. The advance is nothing less than marvelous, and it is reflected, I think, in every branch of art excepting one: the literary art, which has in our day, and in our country, reached an abysmal depth of degradation. ”