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THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN ART and I have no hesitation in predicting that the opportunity thus afforded will result in some bewilderingly great discovery in advance of our present-day knowledge of that art—a step in advance at least as important as that made by Puvis de Chavannes when he painted the out-of-door atmosphere upon the walls of the Panthéon in Paris. It is at least certain that the movement in this same direction will be pushed much farther than at present, and that open-air effects and open-air tones will be used with increasing frequency by our mural painters, because on this line only can they hope to achieve any notable advance over their predecessors.

The fact is that the open has claimed us as a people! We devote ourselves with ever-increasing enthusiasm to out-of-door pleasures and out-of-door pursuits; we have learned to love out-of-door [253]