Excerpt from American Masters of Sculpture: Being Brief Appreciations of Some American Sculptors and of Some Phases of Sculpture in America The year 1876, the date of the Centennial Exhibition, is a landmark in the progress of American sculpture as it is in that of American painting. Not to be fixed too definitely, and yet serving approximately as a starting-point of new conditions which have transformed what had been a sporadic and largely exotic product into a lusty, homogeneous and thoroughly acclimatised growth. I speak of the gradual improvement and spread of taste in the community; the steady trend of students to Paris and the habit of American sculptors to make their own country the scene and inspiration of their labours. The earlier tendency had been toward Italy; to Rome and Florence, especially, where American colonies existed. Here the student adopted the Canova tradition of sweetened classicism, or the infusion of naturalism into the classic vein, represented in the work of a few romanticists; and, having learned his craft, remained in Italy to practise it. His sources of instruction had not been of the best and he worked in an atmosphere tainted with artistic and political decadence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.