Viewing page 1 of 16

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

To Paint American

Good people know what is right & that almost makes it futile to write articles. Good people know what is right in general & it follows they will know what is right when they examine the particular. Here good means, of course, an accuracy of fundamentals, that balance of intelligence & emotion, with a supply of knowledge, which keeps reason above prejudices. The only prejudices allowable in the good are for standards & not for types. 

The good who have thought of american art know what it is to paint in the real american spirit. There is nothing new, complex or secret about it. They also know how much is said on the subject by that large unblended chorus of artists & professional writers who hymn & plead for what they call the national spirit. A strange thing, as [[?]] by them, an odd poly-faceted thing, no second facet of it visible while one focuses on a single surface. Each pleader has delight in his horse on the merry-go-round & does not try to see into the core where the motor & the music are. Articles on aesthetics are especially unlikely to be written either by or for the good people. There is a welter of the other, strident & shallow, written mainly to keep someone alive or give him an importance. 

The good do not see much hope, not enough usually to break the silence, of writing more influentially than the average. They leave the field too free. There is some hope of bringing over the nearly good, or at least giving some a better affectation. 

The arrogance of the first paragraphs carries its full cargo of humbleness & ignorance, a brassy rather than a golden arrogance, but that does not weaken my desire to contradict the advertised definitions of painting american nor ruin the simplicity of my ideas.