No more magnificent demonstration of the qualities possible to
the purely modern methods of painting has been made than this brilliant
little picture of Sargent's. All the more is it a demonstration of the
qualities impossible to these methods. If such qualities have any
permanent value and interest for the modern world it is a gain for art
that some painters should try to keep alive the methods that render
possible their attainment.
VI
THE AMERICAN SCHOOL
In the catalogues of our museums you may find entries like this: "John
Smith, American school; The Empty Jug" or what-not. In such entries
little more than a bare statement of nationality is intended. John Smith
is an American, by birth or adoption; that is all that the statement is
meant to convey. But the question occurs: Have we an American school in
a more specific sense than this? Have we a body of painters with certain
traits in common and certain differences from the painters of other
countries? Has our production in painting sufficient homogeneity and
sufficient national and local accent to entitle it to the name of
American school in the sense in which there is, undoubtedly, a French
school and an English school?
Under the conditions of to-day there are no longer anywhere such
distinctive local schools as existed in the Renaissance.
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