Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/299

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN ART France, the Frenchman would then inevitably belong to the Dutch school and the Dutchman would develop as a French impressionist. Each, being temperamentally sensitive to beauty, would simply respond to the appeal of his environment. Now, if this is correct, there could, of course, be no such thing as American art. But that there is such a thing—an art which would have been impossible but for the evolution of the American man, as distinct from the men of Germany, France, Spain, or even England—is precisely what I hope to demonstrate in this final chapter. And that this American art is destined to grow rapidly in power and distinction, until it occupies for its little time the foremost place in the world of art, is not, I think, beyond the power of reasonable demonstration. [235]