s is the common expression of admiration nowadays. He
put everything at a distance, made it reposeful, and drew about figure
and landscape an atmosphere which not only made them beautiful, but
established a strange and reciprocal mood of sentiment between them. He
alone of all American painters filled the whole of his canvas with air;
others place a barrier to atmosphere in their middle distance, and it
comes no farther, but he brought it over to the nearest inch of
foreground. This treatment, while it aided the quietness and restful
mystery of his pictures, also strengthened his constant effort to avoid
marked contrasts. He sought always a general impression, and ruthlessly
sacrificed everything that called attention to itself at the expense of
the whole. Yet he was not a man of swift insight in comprehensive
matters, nor one who could be called clever. Weighty in thought as in
figure, he moved slowly and in long waves, and although of marked
quickness in intuition, he seemed to distrust this quality in himself
until he had proved it by reason. He received his motive as by a spark
quicker than the lightning's, and when he began a work saw its intention
clearly, although its form and details were wholly obscured. Out of a
mist of darkness he saw a face shine dimly with some light of joy or
sorrow that was in it, and at the moment caught its suggestion upon the
waiting canvas. Then came inquiry, explanation, reasoning, the exercise
of a manly and poetic sensibility, and endless experiment with lines and
forms, of which the greater part were meaningless, until by unwearied
searching, and constant trial and correction, the complete idea was
expressed at last.

When a painter produces works in this strange fashion, an involved and
confused manner of technical treatment becomes inevitable. The schools,
which glorify manual skill and the swift and exhilarating production of
effects, cannot appreciate it, for all their teaching is opposed to the
principle that makes technique subordinate to idea, and they cannot look
with favor upon a man who boldly reverses everything. The perfect art
undoubtedly rests upon a combination of sublime thought and entire
command of resources, but while we wait for this we shall not make
mistake if we consider the effective, even if unlicensed, expression of
idea superior to a facility that has become cheap from hundreds
mastering it yearly. We cannot close our eyes to Fuller's technical
faults an