Scandinavian art, also, shows divergencies, following national characteristics — that of Norway being ruder, somewhat more direct; that of Sweden following more faithfully the varying currents of foreign art, as does the scanty art of Finland; that of Denmark, seem ingly more intimate, with comparatively little variety. The emancipation from foreign domi nation, mostly German and latterly French, is recent and is not yet complete, dating in Den mark from the commencement of the 19th cen tury, under Thorwaldsen (q.v.) the sculptor and Eckersberg the painter ; and in Norway from only about 1890. The sound technical training that permits of the rendering of even the dis tinctively northern themes, the clear, cold, im pressive aspects of nature, the sincere and inti mate domestic genre, has in nearly all cases been acquired in foreign schools—Norway and Finland having none of their own; and of the most brilliantly equipped of these painters, as the Swede, Zorn (q.v.), and the Norwegian, Thaulow, it is to be said that their art, like their celebrity, is cosmopolitan. Many of the artists trained in Paris have identified themselves with the contemporary French school — the Norwe gians generally excepted. Among the few paint ers who have remained distinctly national, one of the most original and most decorative in his work is Carl Larsson of Sweden; Gerhard Munthe of Norway, a good landscape painter, owes his international reputation to his very curious and novel renderings of ancient legends.
The art of Switzerland, like the best of all that of the minor countries, even the South American and the Danubian, reflects strongly the influence of the Parisian schools. In Basel, however, in 1897, was celebrated a double festi val in honor of Holbein and Bocklin (q.v.), the latter a painter whose art was singularly free from all traditions whatever.
The art of western Europe was first intro duced into Russia by Peter the Great; before him it was barbaric, or semi-Byzantine, like the civilization. The Saint Petersburg Academy of the Arts was founded by the Empress Elizabeth in 1757. In its curriculum the imitations of the various European schools of painting were taken up in turn, or simultaneously, from Carracci and Guido Reni to the classicism of David and Mengs. The reaction against these has naturally developed a number of painters who strive to give expression to the sympathy with their own race or their own ideals; many of them share the depression, the pessimism, which character izes so much of the contemporary literature. This affects strongly the landscape sentiment, even in the works of artists who have returned from studying abroad. Of these figure painters, the most important are Repin, Wasnetzoff, Se rof and some others, the first named being one of the boldest of the realists of any school or time. Verestchagin (q.v.) is well known abroad by his very numerous and very large canvases in which he has sought to depict the horrors of war. In the Russian school are included the two Finnish painters, Edelfelt, whose figures and portraits are rendered with all the excel lence of Parisian technique, and Axel Gallen, whose strikingly original paintings depict weird scenes in the national legends. Of the painters
of Poland, the most widely known are Matejko and Josef Brandt (q.v.).
In the United States, painting has developed along the lines of technical excellence, rather than in any striking or inspiring development of a great distinct national art. Even in the matter of technique, some of the early portrait painters, as Gilbert Stuart (q.v.) and the wood engraver, A. B. Durand (q.v.)Washington unsur passed. Trumbull (q.v.) and All ston (q.v.) were not only portraitists but also painters of historical and imaginative composi tions, the former excelling in the small heads in his large historical canvases, and the latter displaying more of a painter's feeling for tone and color. The art of Benjamin West and C. R. Leslie belongs rather to England and is to-day quite alien. The modern landscape may be said to commence with the pictures of the visionary Thomas Cole (q.v.), and is rapidly de veloped in the work of the painters of the '