International studio (53.1914)

American Art at the Anglo-American Exposition

American art at the
ANGLO-AMERICAN EXPOSI¬
TION.
Each year that the large Exhibition at Shepherd’s
Bush has opened its gates to the public one of its
most interesting, and to our mind, most valuable
features has been the Fine Art Section. Here
in spacious well-lighted galleries it is possible to see
well and enjoy thoroughly the large number of
works for which the rooms afford ample and
comfortable wall-space.
This year at the Anglo-American Exposition, as
on previous occasions, an interesting and a fairly
comprehensive display of modern British art
occupies a number of the galleries, and taken as a
whole the collection is a good one both as regards
the pictures and the sculpture. Ample room is
provided for the exhibits, and the sculpture,
agreeably disposed with bay-trees and shrubs at
intervals, is seen perhaps to better advantage than
elsewhere in London exhibitions, where our
sculptors rarely have justice done to them. As,
however, the majority of
the exhibits in the British

evolution of any peculiarly national attributes
in that art; traditions are unquestionably being
slowly formed, but their roots are not yet deep
enough, nor are they at present of sufficiently long
duration to have resulted in the flowering of
anything distinguishable so far as a purely American
style. There is incontestable evidence of a greater
preponderance of French as opposed to British
influence in the work of many American painters.
If it be true that all good Americans when they die
go to Paris, it would seem to be equally true that
the majority of those who belong to the artistic
fraternity migrate thither beforehand and spend
a good part of their lives in la ville lumiere.
So it is that in looking around the exhibition one
is immediately struck by the strong affinity between
this art and contemporary French painting, though
one would not overlabour this point, for many of
those who are represented have become so acclima-
tised by their long residence in Paris that their
regular contributions to the Salons are sometimes
more Parisian than the Parisians.
Five rooms are set apart for pictures by artists

Section are productions of
artists whose works are
frequently illustrated in
these pages—quite a num-
ber of them having, in-
deed, already appeared in
The Studio —it will be of
greater interest if our at-
tention is devoted to an
examination in detail of
the American Section, as
containing works with
which the British readers
of this magazine are less
familiar.
Perhaps the most pro-
nounced characteristic of
American art as here dis-
played is, speaking
generally and also some-
what paradoxically, its lack
of any pronounced charac-
teristics —characteristics,
that is to say, which betray
and reveal its nationality.
Sufficient time has scarcely
as yet elapsed in the history
of the art of the United


States to allow of the

“DICHTER LIEBE—A MORNING IN MAY ”

BY J. ROLSHOVEN
293