The art of old Japan ran on for centuries and was excellent art notwithstanding it was academic and based in tradition. It did not run into formalism and never became trite until recent years. Its ruin lies straight ahead of it if it shall abandon its traditions and continue to coquette with Occidental art. But the bulk of painting by the young men of the Society of American Artists became commonplace within a dozen years after their return because they had learned abroad only a manner and reproduced it here in America with the persistence of a mannerism. They never knew the academic in its larger significance; they never felt the spirit and style of the traditional. That is not to proclaim their work worthless or their movement inconsequent. On the contrary, almost everything that one generation in art could do was done. And well done. They established a foundation in sound technique. It remains to be seen if those who come after will build upon it or cast it down. Moreover, as an expression of the individual quite apart from the time, place, or people, as a representation of cosmopolitan belief about art, it must be accorded a very high place. Whistler and Sargent happen just now to be the most talked about exponents of the cosmopolitan, but dozens of painters here in America since 1876 belong in the same class and have the same belief. It is all along of a new departure in art, and how it shall work out no one can say, but that it does not entirely satisfy contemporary needs is already manifest. In spite of present practice, and quite apart from _Ten O’Clock_ and other painter extravagances, art is still believed to be in some way an expression of a time, a place, and a people. The world has not yet grown so small that it does not continue to exhibit race characteristics in its art manifestations. That the all-the-world-as-one idea may be farther-reaching, more universal in its scope, and therefore loftier in its art expression than any national or race expression is very possible; nay, probable. Still, even then, with cosmopolitanism in the saddle, there will be the need and the use of tradition--the consensus of opinion and body of belief as to what constitutes style in art. II GEORGE INNESS 1825-1894 II GEORGE INNESS 1825-1894