American Painting and its Tradition by John C. Van Dyke

A distribution and pigeonholing of our nine American painters as regards aim and tendency would perhaps place Inness, Wyant, and Martin among the most intelligent and sympathetic of the earlier men; Homer, La Farge, and Whistler the most detached and self-sufficient of the middle men, and Chase, Alexander, and Sargent the most facile and best trained of the younger men. The last three may, indeed, stand as epitomizing the art movement which took form and gave tongue in the Society of American Artists.

That movement was epoch-making. There was awakening to the fact that painting in America as a craft was not technically understood, that it was not properly taught -- could not be taught in America. With that came the departure for Europe of many young students and their training in the studios of Munich and Paris. When the Society of American Artists finally got under way in the early eighties its initial reason for existence was that its members at least knew how to paint. They had been abroad and learned the grammar of their art and were now returned to show their countrymen the finished craftsman. Sargent's influence was largely through the example of his portraits and Alexander's vogue was to come a little later; but Chase was the one that arrived early in the day, carried the banner, and announced that art had come to town.