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March 21, 1846
1
Art Criticism in the United States
by Elizabeth Woodward
The Subject for tonight is art criticism in the United States because it covers the national period of American life. The first serious art critic in our history, John Neal (1793-1876) Published his first observations on art in 1823, in his novel Randolph. A decade later, in 1834, William Dunlap, himself a painter as well as a theatrical entrepreneur, Published A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United Sates, a monumental two-volume work, which until very recently (1943) was considered to be the first work of Art History and Criticism in American art literature. Dunlop did not mention Neal's critical writing, tough in 1929 Neal had praised Dunlap's portrait of Gov. Clinton. From the Date of Neal's first published criticism, our country has had a steady stream of critics; and certain key works may be taken as samples of how well the function was served in the nineteenth century. After Dunlap came the next standard historian, H. T. Tuckerman, whose Artist-Life was published in 1847 and whose classic two-volume Book of the Artists came out twenty years later. Meanwhile the amate [[strikethrough]] a [[/strikethrough]] ur Charles Edwards