New-York tribune., 1921-05-15
The American School
From Copley and Stuart to the
Present Day

(TeSSut DdJ
The Junior Art Patrons have made
an auspicious beginning in their open
4 ipr exhibition at the Fine Arts Build
;pg 1t is a retrospective show of
y american painting, and Mrs. Albert
I stsrner, who has organized the affair,
/ has brought together and effectively
/ Sung an interesting collection. This is
hurt, to be sure, by the very catholicity
4 which ought to be a source of strength
4 10 the enterprise. The young modern
I Its" have been freely admitted, and
4 this means that the walls are dotted at
srequent intervals with crude banali-
ties, the tasteless productions of Self
1 confident dabsters who ''know what
they like" but do not happen to like
I the discipline which makes competent
4 painteys. If the Junior Art Patrons are
I regularly TO be offered so generous a
4 quantity IS is here presented of this
z, dubious fare we have no great hopes
Of their educational prospects. But
Mrs. Sterner has at least provided the
aa.idote and her good pictures are IN
ths majority. They form necessarily
incomplete but still suggestive apd de-
ightful representation Of the Ameri-
can school.
IT is instructive to observe how it
4 aaforces the same lesson which we
4 have lately had occasion to note in the
history of French art, apropos of the
exhibition at the Metropolitan. Our
men have played the game with ms
spring fidelity. They began in the
days Of our dependence upon English
precedent. The first of the galleries at
the Fine Arts Building is full of con-
yineing evidence on this point. Copley
and Stuart are there, the leading fig
dres in our formative period. They do
NOT happen to be present in their finest
form. but their portraits show we'll
enough how devoted they were to a
sound standard of craftsmanship. All
through this wing of the exhibition
one is aware of the same loyalty, the
loyalty that carried as early man as
John Smibert to a respectable level of
schievement, the loyalty of later men
such as Morse, Sully and William Nor
ris Hunt. AS the record unfolds,
bringing US athwart the Hudson River
school, the springs of American art
seem perilously near TO drying up, but
Il Is only seeming. The pioneers of
eur landscape painting arise and the
1 Gay is saved.
Perhaps the most significant canvas
ID the whole show is the extraordinary
\ picture called "a Nook Near Our Viii
!sge," by George Inness. 1t is extraor-
4 dlnary because it was painted when he
was still in his twenties. One marvels
hat youth could be so authoritative.
but even more impressive than the
I polished technique is the clear indica-
aon in this picture of the direction that
inness and so many of his followers
were to take, the direction of men
| wohting by alien example and at the
same time expressing themselves.
themselves, and rich feeling for
beauty. lnness did not paint this land
seape merely as the careful copyist of
lhs natural world that is obvious in
| a Its minutely observed details. He
/ painted it as a creative artist, having
hew and vivid sense OF light and air,
q sa instinct for the imponderable ele-
hents in landscape phenomena. The
PAINTING stands like a monument at The
parting of the ways, an instance of
personality emerging from conventional
iahaences and affirming itself with true
sftistic force.
That is the story which this exhi-
muon on its better side consistently
illustrates. Private collectors and
Hslers have lent works which in many
vases are the more acceptable because
meg are not exactly important" but
apfesent in really intimate manner
sesquality Of the artist. Inness leads
W. IN the strictly modern contingent,
accompanied by Wyant and Winslow
somer, The two Americans who went
sofoad but remain among our national
g0rles, Whistler and Sargent. are both
I"eeht into the show. La Fargo is
present, in beautiful Tahitian land
rSspe' and the single example of George
I e Forrest Brush is that "Leda and the
ssan' which maintains itself as one
4 tne loyeliest of his compositions.
/ easpassed for grace by any of his
1 s performances. The Thayers are
apefo portraits and the Reading" by
TreWing, is one of his masterpieces.
4 as aun'ch movement crops out in can
"A ess oy Duveneck and Chase, there
good specimen of Robert Blum.
I s ssa IKE Twachtman, Weir, Hassam
~ aarbell have their places, and SO
= = procession moves ON, bringing into
ssw Ernest lawson and Jonas Lie.
'sSsfS Henri and George Bellows, Ken