And yet this is the encyclopædia which has been foisted upon the American people by means of a P. T. Barnum advertising campaign almost unprecedented in book history. And this also is the encyclopædia which, in that campaign, called itself “a history of all nations, an international dictionary of biography, an exhaustive gazetteer of the world, a hand-book to all the arts”; and which announced that “every artist or sculptor of note of any period, and of any land is the subject of an interesting biography.” This last statement is true only in the case of Great Britain. It is, as we have seen, not true of France or Germany; and especially is it not true of America. Not only are many American artists and sculptors of note omitted entirely, but many of those who have been awarded mention are the victims of English insular prejudice.
Looking up Benjamin West, who, by historians and critics has always been regarded as an American artist, we find him designated as an “English” painter. The designation is indeed astonishing, since not only does the world know him as an American, but West himself thought that he was an American. Perhaps the Encyclopædia Britannica, by some obscure process of logic, considers nationality from the standpoint of one’s sentimental adoption. This being the case, Richard Le Gallienne would be an “American” poet. But when we turn to Le Gallienne’s biography we discover that, after all, he is “English.” Apparently the rule does not work with Englishmen. It is true that West went to London and lived there; but he was born in the United States, gained a reputation for painting here, and did not go to England until he was twenty-five. It is noteworthy that West, the “English” painter, is accorded considerable space.
Whistler, who also chose England in preference to America, is given nearly a page and a half with not unfavorable criticism. We cannot refrain from wondering what would have been Whistler’s fate at the hands of the Encyclopædia’s editors had he remained in his native country. Sargent, surely a painter of considerable importance and one who is regarded in many enlightened quarters as a great artist, is dismissed with less than half a column! Even this comparatively long biography for an American painter may be accounted for by the following comment: “Though of the French school, and American by birth, it is as a British artist that he won fame.” Again, Abbey receives high praise and quite a long biography, comparatively speaking. Once more we wonder if this painter’s adoption of England as his home does not account for his liberal treatment. Albert F. Bellows, too, gets fourteen lines, in which it is noted that “he painted much in England.”
Compare the following record with the amounts of space accorded British second-rate painters: William Chase, sixteen lines; Vedder, a third of a column; de Forest Brush, fifteen lines; T. W. Dewing, twelve lines; A. H. Wyant, ten lines; A. P. Ryder, eight lines; Tryon, fifteen lines; John W. Alexander, sixteen lines; Gari Melchers, eighteen lines; Childe Hassam, fifteen lines; Blashfield, ten lines; J. Francis Murphy, fifteen lines; Blakelock, eight lines. Among these names are painters of a high and important order—painters who stand in the foremost rank of American art, and who unquestionably are greater than a score of English painters who receive very special critical biographies, some of which extend over columns. And yet—apparently for no other discernible reason than that they are Americans—they are given the briefest mention with no specific criticism. Only the barest biographical details are set down.
But if many of the American painters who have made our art history are dismissed peremptorily in biographies which, I assure you, are not “interesting,” and which obviously are far from adequate or even fair when compared with the consideration given lesser English painters, what answer have the editors of the Britannica to offer their American customers when many of our noteworthy and important artists are omitted altogether? On what grounds is a biography of J. Alden Weir omitted entirely? For what reason does the name of Robert Henri not appear? Henri is one of the very important figures in modern American painting.
Furthermore, inspection reveals the fact that among those American “painters of note” who, so far as biographical mention in the Encyclopædia Britannica is concerned, do not exist, are Mary Cassatt, George Bellows, Twachtman, C. W. Hawthorne, Glackens, Jerome Meyers, George Luks, Sergeant Kendall, Paul Dougherty, Allen Talcott, Thomas Doughty, Richard Miller and Charles L. Elliott.
I could add more American painters to the list of those who are omitted and who are of equal importance with certain British painters who are included; but enough have been mentioned to prove the gross inadequacy of the Encyclopædia Britannica as an educational record of American art.
Outside of certain glaring omissions, what we read in the Encyclopædia concerning the painters of France and Germany may be fair, from a purely impartial standard, if taken alone: in some instances, I believe, judicial critics of these other nations have performed the service. But when these unprejudiced accounts are interspersed with the patriotic and enthusiastic glorifications of British art, the only conclusion which the uninformed man can draw from the combination is that the chief beauties of modern painting have sprung from England—a conclusion which illy accords both with the facts and with the judgment of the world’s impartial critics. But in the case of American art, not even the strictly impartial treatment occasionally accorded French and German painters is to be found, with the result that, for the most part, our art suffers more than that of any other nation when compared, in the pages of the Britannica, with British art.