Compare the following record with the amounts of space accorded British
second-rate painters: William Chase, sixteen lines; Vedder, a third of
a column; de Forest Brush, fifteen lines; T. W. Dewing, twelve lines;
A. H. Wyant, ten lines; A. P. Ryder, eight lines; Tryon, fifteen lines;
John W. Alexander, sixteen lines; Gari Melchers, eighteen lines; Childe
Hassam, fifteen lines; Blashfield, ten lines; J. Francis Murphy, fifteen
lines; Blakelock, eight lines. Among these names are painters of a high
and important order—painters who stand in the foremost rank of American
art, and who unquestionably are greater than a score of English painters
who receive very special critical biographies, some of which extend over
columns. And yet—apparently for no other discernible reason than that
they are Americans—they are given the briefest mention with no specific
criticism. Only the barest biographical details are set down.
But if many of the American painters who have made our art history are
dismissed peremptorily in biographies which, I assure you, are not
“interesting,” and which obviously are far from adequate or even fair
when compared with the consideration given lesser English painters,
what answer have the editors of the _Britannica_ to offer their American
customers when many of our noteworthy and important artists are omitted
altogether? On what grounds is a biography of J. Alden Weir omitted
entirely? For what reason does the name of Robert Henri not appear? Henri
is one of the very important figures in modern American painting.
Furthermore, inspection reveals the fact that among those American
“painters of note” who, so far as biographical mention in the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_ is concerned, do not exist, are Mary Cassatt,
George Bellows, Twachtman, C. W. Hawthorne, Glackens, Jerome Meyers,
George Luks, Sergeant Kendall, Paul Dougherty, Allen Talcott, Thomas
Doughty, Richard Miller and Charles L. Elliott.
I could add more American painters to the list of those who are omitted
and who are of equal importance with certain British painters who are
included; but enough have been mentioned to prove the gross inadequacy of
the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ as an educational record of American art.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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