Studio: international art (48.1910)

American Figure Painters

questioned as to whether or not the art of his
land is in this particular giving promise.

The United States is essentially a composite
nation, but its people share in common certain
fixed characteristics. Regardless of ancestry, and
despite the levelling influence of travel, an American
is rarely mistaken for the citizen of another
country when met in a foreign land. And as with
her people, so, in a measure, with her art, though
in a less degree. America has borrowed pro-
digiously from England, Germany, France and
Holland, but the wisdom thus acquired she has
assimilated and is now bringing to fruition. The
first American figure-painters got their training in
London and followed English tradition. Later the
Diisseldorf school attracted the American students,
and even before its light had waned France came
to the fore and exerted a powerful influence,

' LADY IN BLACK " BY WILLIAM M. CHASE

186

"THE TANAGRA" BY THOMAS P. ANSHDTZ

lessened, but by no means dissipated, eventually,
by the teaching of the Dutch. Thus, briefly, may
be traced the upbuilding of American art, and
the lack of uniformity in the mass of American
production explained.

i/'There is a prevalent belief in Great Britain that
the only American figure-painters of note are those
who do not live in America; and not without
reason. The names of Sargent and Shannon and
Abbey, of Gari Melchers, Mary Cassatt and Elihu
Vedder, loom large on both sides of the Atlantic ;
but the British critic visiting the great annual exhi-
bitions of contemporary American paintings in the
United States would find, as did the American critics
who last summer visited the exhibitions of British
art at Shepherd's Bush, London, and Edinburgh,
that these artists are not the only figure-painters
who are producing works of exceptional merit.