By Virile-Impressionism is meant a manner of viewing nature and a mode of painting quite different from the more superficial refinements of Impressionism on the one hand and the extraordinary developments of Post-Impressionism on the other.
Let us try to make this clear.
As already noted, Impressionism attained a logical end in the painting of brilliant light effects, especially in the works of the Neo-Impressionists, the pointillists.
In short, the drift of Impressionism in France was toward more and more brilliant reflections of the surfaces of things.
This extreme attentuation was quite foreign to the spirit of America, which is more material and practical.
It may be our fault, it is certainly our virtue, that we are material and practical in our outlook. In a big, sane sense we are dreamers. Only dreamers could carry the Panama Canal to completion, and, to mention lesser works, only dreamers could build such terminals as the Pennsylvania and New York Central in New York, and such buildings as the Woolworth and the Manhattan. But our dreams always take practical shape. We are a nation of inventors because we are a nation of dreamers.
Hence, while our artists were quick to respond to all that is good and strong in Impressionism, they found little satisfaction in the ultra-refinements of Neo-Impressionism.
The result was that when France pressed Impressionism to its extreme, a normal and healthy reaction took place in American art.