New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-09-29
American Art

accomplished of our portrait paint
ers, has been publicly saying there
| that America has no national art
We are too young, it seems, to have
a school of our own, and for many
years must continue to go to France
for inspiration. These are mislead-
ing assertions, and it is unfortunate
that they should have been made be-
fore the International Art Congress,
to which Miss BeauX is a delegate.
The quasi-official status of body of
this sort sometimes gives to the pro-
nouncements Of it's members a sane
ton and reverberating effect they
do not invariably deserve.
What is national art? The critic
who conclusively defined it would
work miracle, for different nations
give it a different significance. In
Italy, during the Renaissance, it
meant widespread burst of artistic
energy, strongly influenced by the
patronage of the Church. In Spain
art was an imported luxury, only
nationalized, rather late in the day,
by handful of brilliant painters,
Zurburan, Murillo, Ell Greco, Velas-
quez. And, raradoxically, the great
est of these, who might almost be
said to constitute the Spanish school,
Velasquez, lowered his nation by
realizing his own ideas. He points
to the core of the whole problem.
Personality is the central source
of every national school. Italian art
is the art Of Bellini or a Titan,
Raphael or Michael Angelo; Ger
man art is the art of a Durer or
Holbein. In the Low Countries it is
a Rembrandt or Halls, Rubens or
a Van Dyck, who stands for the ma
tional background. In England it is
Hogarth or Reynolds. France is the
only country whose art has been ma
tionalized through alliance with the
state, and if academic solidarity and
discipline have occasionally been
justified of their children it is never
theless true that the outstanding
masters of the school have tri-
umphed through sheer personal
power, from Claude and Poussin
down through Vatican to Ingres,
the Romanticists, the Barbizon men
and the Impressionists. Briefly,
national art connotes the n1inistra-
tons of intensely individualized
men, and there our very youth, per-
haps, has caused US to develop an
impressive number of remarkable
artists.
Stuart and Copley affirm the fact,
despite their allegiance to eigh-
teenth-century English tradition.
Once we come down into the modern
era, pausing on admirable painters
like Sully and Morse, we encounter
some Of the highest types to be
found anywhere. Inness, Wyant and
Homer Martin are among them, pio-
neers in landscape school that has
never lost it's vitality and distinc-
ton. Winslow Hoper appears, as
racy a painter as ever lived. John
La Fargo enters the field, painter of
landscape, flowers and the figure,
mural decorator, designer of stained
glass, a kind Of universal genius.
American art produces men of inn
aginative power like Elihu Vedder.
Albert P. Ryder and Abbott Thayer.
1t adds to the painters of Venice the
greatest since Turner, William Ged-
ney Bunce. In creative originality
it can claim Whistler, in technical
virtuosity Sargent. 1t has had a
Saint-Gaudens in sculpture; in archi-
lecture men like Hunt, Richardson
and McKim. But we need not null
tiply names. We have cited as manv
as are necessary to enforce the point
that In our own time. as in the past.
national art is indicated in the
emergence Of gifted men from a ma
TONS loins.
There are two matters in which
our school, as school. can still
profit by discreet contact with
French art, the matters of form and
composition. But even the weakness
of our rank and file runs the risk Of
falling into deeper pit if it leans
too confidently on the arid, cut-and-
dried formulas into which the Salon
has lapsed. Moreover, with all our
deficiencies on our heads, it remains
true that almost any exhibition OF
miscellaneous American art TODAY
will exhale an atmosphere of energy.
freshness and sincerity not to be
surpassed abroad. We are second to
none in abundance Of mediocritv.
There are quite as many dull and
stupid painters in the United States
as there are in Paris or London. But
tho rrcnort;o,, &c $500 e,