Book Description

Excerpt from The Craftsman, Vol. 17: January, 1910 Even the rather extraordinary infusion of blue throughout the pictures was not a fad or a whim, but instead a realization by our painters of the brilliant hard blue that dominates American atmos phere on sunshiny days - a pitiless blue which presents the world without nuance, exhilaratin but merciless, a brilliance that is some times shadowed in fall an early spring, that trails off to rose and purple in Colorado, yellow in Arizona, but that regains its strength and persistence all along the Pacific Coast. In the past we have somehow been afraid of this extraordinary, dazzling atmosphere of America. It has seemed less lovely' to us than the mists of the H01 land lowlands and the French coast, than the fogs of England, than the green and rose of the Orient. So we have painted America in Dutch mists and English fogs and East Indian rose tints. We have been afraid and unwise and we have fumbled in our technique because of our lack of sincerity. Fortunately, we have finally grown to know that the only value possible in our art lies in presenting with out subtleties, naked and unashamed, 'ust the atmosphere which belongs to us, not forcing ourselves to ress to any foreign artistic past; for there is no greater error possible than any form of imitation in art, manners or customs. The imagination cannot stir unless it creates, and the public gives response only in proportion as the artist has power to communicate his own thrill. The pictures from the Water Color Exhibit which are presented in this article are not in any instance the prize winning sketches, but they do emphatically illustrate the point we wish to make clear, that they represent a stage in the development of what may be truly char acterized as American art. Not only in such externals as gestures and expression and the material conditions, but in presenting the atti tude of the American people toward their conditions, toward them selves. And we grow to realize that there are no vital questions which may be asked concerning a nation, that it is not possible to answer in an art that is sincere. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.