There has been a demand for several years for new historic paintings. The feeling exists that the painters of one hundred years ago could not have the perspective to portray the Revolution correctly, no more than a historian of the same period could write its history. The time has come for modern artists in American historic art. The World’s Fair at Chicago gave an impetus to the work, especially in decorative form. As a result, public buildings erected within the past twenty years show many interesting and distinguished examples of historic art in mural decorations, by such artists as Blashfield, Kenyon Cox, C. Y. Turner, and others. There is a demand now from many sources--from galleries, Federal and state governments, and from schools--for historical pictures which shall be true and shall also be worthy examples of modern work. * * * * * This number of The Mentor contains four distinguished examples of modern historical art. Three of them are the work of Mr. Henry Mosler, and were painted within the past five years. Mr. Mosler has been known as an artist of great distinction for a long time. As early as 1874 he won a medal at the Royal Academy of Munich, and he won the Thomas B. Clarke prize in the National Academy of Design, New York, in 1896. Mr. Mosler, therefore, brought the ripe powers of a master painter to the work, and he has produced four paintings of great art value and historic importance. * * * * * The first picture, which appeared four years ago, is entitled “Ring, Ring, for Liberty,” and represents, with great strength and vigor, the old bell ringer in the cupola of Independence Hall, who sounded the note of liberty in July, 1776. Three years ago Mr. Mosler finished his painting of Betsy Ross and her companions making the first flag, which is reproduced in this number of The Mentor. Mr. Mosler based his work on careful sketches made in the Betsy Ross house on Arch Street, Philadelphia. Our readers will surely feel the grace and charm as well as the vital interest of this picture. * * * * * Many have said that our country needed a new painting of “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” The familiar composition, by Leutze, is regarded as stiff and constrained and as lacking a sense of reality. Mr. Mosler’s picture gives a true and spirited conception of the event, based on historical study and on sketches made in the winter time at the point of the Delaware where Washington crossed. The painting of Paul Jones is a vivid dramatic presentment of a historical subject that has never heretofore been pictured in an adequate manner. * * * * *