Water-color painting has always formed a very living section of American art life. ‘Vhen Vassili Vercstchagin, the great Russian war painter, was in America, he was astonished, according to his own account, that native artists were not more alive to the possibilities of American scenery and American life as subjects for the pencil. He was not sufficiently ac quainted with the history of art in the country to which he had come a stranger, to be aware of the fact that local art had long flourished there- The Hudson River School of painter. produced many noble transcripts from the scenery of that river, mostly in large canvases, and by employing oil as a favorite medium. but several of them have also executed gems of art in water-colors after the style of the best masters. Among those who have done some good water-color sketching among the sublime scenery of the West may be named Albert Bierstadt, some of whose views are cor rect in drawing and rich in coloring. albeit they owed their original impressiveness to the novelty of the effects in atmosphere and moun tam contour or coloring which they reproduced. The same in a less degree may be said of the drawn:4;s of F. E. (lurch. Neither of these painters was, however triumphant in water 'Y as in oil. The New Fork Water Color Club has done much to foster a revived interest in this most difficult yet most effective and de kghtful department of the painter's art and ainarag the most successful of those who culti vate it may be enumerated James McNeill 1111.istler, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Abbey. Moran, Parton, Murphy, Parsons, Shun leer. 'Tryon. etc. Louis C. Tiffany is a colorist of rare gifts and although his natural predilec tion leads him to the representation of still life, yet his water-color landscapes have a value of their own Charles Sanderson is well known his lovely water-color studies of the shores of Lake Michigan. At the end of the 19th cen tury there was suddenly a new movement de setoped in this drtment, principally through epa the influence of John H. Twachtman, whose early death was a sad blow to the cause he had most at heart in his native country. In 1898 the Ten American Artists crystallized into a new school of painting in New York. As far as this movement was represented by Twachtman it stood for a distinct advance in water-color art_ There can be no doubt that he re flected in the practice of his art the very best features of that style which in Europe sal embodied in the work of Girtin, Cozens and Turner. Water-color painting in the United States numbers among its devotees many other great names. Homer Martin's few water
colors are of the highest value. Frederic Crown nishield shows in his water-colors a noble sense of the form of hills and cliffs and the greater fr.rms of the landscape, as well as of tree-form. %%inslow Homer's many water-colors are about as important a contribution to American art as any other group of works. They are extremely vieorous and impressive, they sell at high prices and among lovers of modern painting there are certainly none more esteemed. Winslow Homer is essentially • 'painter's painter* and no single artist in the whole group is more ad mired by his fellow-artists. John La Fare's water-colors are what have chiefly made his great reputation. There are hundreds of them in private collections in Boston, New York and neighboring towns and the show of the South Sea Island collection at the Paris Salon in 189IS or 1899 occupied a ball especially set aside for it and made a great sensation. There is nothing in modern art more rich in color than these La Farge drawings, which were produced dining the years 1865 to 1895 chiefly; for from due ttme be became thoroughly absorbed in decorating work glass and the like. The work of Robert F. Blum and that of Irving R. Wiles conmmods the admiration of their brother arrests. Francis Hopkinson Smith was a master of loaded color, that which is mixed with white (the French panache.). There are women artists who motel in water-color work of each kind.
7.-- Baklry. Alf red L., 'The Colour Painting' (London 1911); Bellows, Albert F.. 'Water-color Paint mg; Some Facts and Authorities in Relation to Its Durability' (New York 1W8; New York American Society of Painting in Water Colors) ; Constant-Viguier. F., and Langlois-Longue rine, F It, 'Nouveau manuel complet de mini awe et de gouache; suivi du Manuel du lavis i la sepia, et de (Paris 1845); Fed den, Romilly, 'Modern Water-Colour; includ ing some chapters on current day art' (Bos ton 1917); Gallatin, A. E, 'Notes on some Masters of the Water-Color' (in Art, and Dec oration, New York 1916); Herrick, H., 'Wa ter color Painting; description of materials with direction for their use' (New York 1880); Hulme, Charles, and Finbcrg, A. J., and Taylor, E. A., 'The Development of British Landscape Painting in Water Colours' (New York 1918); MacWhirter. John, 'Landscape Painting in Wa ter Colour' (London 1911); Prang Educational Company. 'A Course in Water-color for the first eight years in school' (Boston 1900) ; Rich. Alfred William, 'Water-colour Painting' (Phil adelphia 1918).