American Art (1940)

The arts and crafts of the aborigines who first lived on the North American continent had little influence on the art of the colonists who came to live there in the 17^th and the 18^th centuries. Except for areas of the south-west, Indian arts were forgotten until very recent times. Instead, the colonists, when they had time for art at all in their never-ending struggle to tame the new country, continued the arts and crafts they had brought with them from Europe.

Up to the 18^th century, the only kind of art which people of wealth and position considered necessary was portraiture; and it was in portraiture that American artists made their first achievements.

After the United States became a nation, historical painting became fashionable. Americans were very proud of their history and liked to see large scenes of battle and exploration with the figures of their heroes and statesmen portrayed in the foreground. Later, as the nation started to move westward, the mysteries of the vast unknown continent were brought home to the people on the eastern seaboard by explorer-artists who wandered along the frontier, painting the look of wilderness before civilization reached it.

The first schools of landscape painting began to appear in America in 1820s. The Hudson River School founded around 1825 by Thomas Cole expressed the new World in enormous romantic canvases.

The late 19^th century was a brilliant period for American-born painters. European painting has had a significant influence on the development of American art. Many artists brought the new European concepts of form and colour to America.

In protest against this excessive patronage of European painting, eight young American painters organized a group exhibition in 1908. They became known as "The Eight". "The Eight" represented the ideal of an American art inspired by American subject matter.

At the end of the last century, many painting styles began to appear in America. Various painters were intrigued with expressionism and abstractionism; others held to classical tendencies. Some engaged in Cubistic ventures or dealt with Surrealistic imagery. Academic Illusionism, Contemporary Romanticism, Realism, Surrealistic Formalism, Abstract Expressionism and many more terms were employed to classify painting movements.

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