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Lecture #4
Collections of the USA
Saarinen
5840[[?]] & [[?]]
           
[[underlined]]Art Collecting in America[[/underlined]]

No where else in the world has the history of private collecting of art followed the same course as in America. It is a unique and fascinating history. Its cast of characters contains some of the most extraordinary, eccentric, interesting, energetic, productive and remarkable people in America. Its patterns illuminate many of the attitudes and different kinds of lives that have existed and now exist in this vast country.

I have singled out four aspects to discuss with you now--four parts of the long, complicated story of art collecting in America which seem to me to point up its unique character.

The first special aspect of private art collecting in America is the extraordinary and astounding speed with which it travelled from the tenth-rate to the best. 

With the end of our Civil War, America entered into a period of an expanding economy. Even in the 1860s, there were many ]]underlined]]nouveau riches[[/underlined]]. One knowing and rather cynical gentleman wrote in the 1870s that it had become the mode to have taste. Private galleries in New York are becoming almost as common as stables, he said. The trouble was, however, [[strikethrough]] was [[/strikethrough]] that what was in the stables was of far better quality than what was in the galleries.

The sumptuous gold frames in these galleries were hung so closely next to each other from floor to ceiling, and wall to wall, that they made a sort of wallpaper. The paintings they contained were mostly the slickest kind of French salon painting. There were Biblical scenes with figures who were made to look religious because they had big, watery, cow-like eyes. There were, on the other hand, pictures of cows that looked devout. For an age that confused beauty with truth to detail, there were paintings