+STYLE IN RECENT ARCHITECTURE.+ The rapid increase in the number of American architects trained in Paris or under the indirect influence of the École des Beaux-Arts has been an important factor in recent architectural progress. Yet it has by no means imposed the French academic formulæ upon American architecture. The conditions, materials, and constructive processes here prevailing, and above all the eclecticism of the public taste, have prevented this. The French influence is perceived rather in a growing appreciation of monumental design in the planning, composition, and setting of buildings, than in any direct imitation of French models. The Gothic revival which prevailed more or less widely from 1840 to 1875, as already noticed, and of which the +State Capitol+ at Hartford (Conn.; 1875-78), and the +Fine Arts Museum+ at Boston, were among the last important products, was generally confined to church architecture, for which Gothic forms are still largely employed, as in the Protestant +Cathedral+ of +All Saints+ now building at Albany (N.Y.), by an English architect. For the most part the works of the last twenty years show a more or less judicious eclecticism, the choice of style being determined partly by the person and training of the designer, partly by the nature of the building. The powerfully conceived works of Richardson, in a free version of the French Romanesque, for a time exercised a wide influence, especially among the younger architects. +Trinity Church+, Boston (Fig. 222), his earliest important work; many public libraries and business buildings, and finally the impressive +County Buildings+ at Pittsburgh (Pa.), all treated in this style, are admirable rather for the strong individuality of their designer, displayed in their vigorous composition, than on account of the historic style he employed (Fig. 223). Yet it appeared in his hands so flexible and effective that it was widely imitated. But if easy to use, it is most difficult to use well; its forms are too massive for ordinary purposes, and in the hands of inferior designers it was so often travestied that it has now lost its wide popularity. While a number of able architects have continued to use it effectively in ecclesiastical, civic, and even commercial architecture, it is being generally superseded by various forms of the Renaissance. Here also a wide eclecticism prevails, the works of the same architect often varying from the gayest Francis I. designs in domestic architecture, or free adaptations of Quattrocento details for theatres and street architecture, to the most formal classicism in colossal exhibition-buildings, museums, libraries, and the like. Meanwhile there are many more or less successful ventures in other historic styles applied to public and private edifices. Underlying this apparent confusion, almost anarchy in the use of historic styles, the careful observer may detect certain tendencies crystallizing into definite form.