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7.

an affection of significance. Benton through the use of cheap ideas, colors, & with a St. Vitus theory of design has been able to make an impression that will someday be seen through if the buildings in which he displays last that long. He has collected probably everyone of the externals of current life, all from a single obvious viewpoint & without humanism or mental dignity. These he has used with a style that does nothing to enlarge them, but amalgamates them in a not uncontrolled though highly active composition that passes for vital. Benton has capitalized on everything that at first glance might unfortunately be considered United States.

George Bellows carried all the traits I have mentioned as the essential american. He used the daily scene, or he went back a few decades for his backgrounds, or he did war scenes but he always did them with an american mind & while he certainly was aware of it I doubt if he ever said much about it or urged anyone to paint american who had no more than a radio & tourist rest viewpoint. In the war series one has an excellent chance to see how the american mind shows itself in alien subjects. The lithographs [[strikethrough]] were [[strikethrough/]] are melodramatic, overshot, but with attempts at idealism & mysticism, The american excessive action & embarrassed half stated religious feeling.

From Burchfield & Hopper we know the full dimensions of our houses, their people & the philosophy of their immediate landscape. Grant Wood gives something of mid-western people but his attitude borders on the smart. There is too much timeliness & a bloom of affectation in his work & while no disapproval of the smart is meant, a person of his ability can do more & one remembers an american tendency to succeed with the intermediate smart rather than risk the embarrassing accusation of snobbery & the chance of failure in attempting the important. There is a smallness of motivation,