The Light of Distant Skies
by. Harcourt, Brace, $10.00.
The second volume in Mr. Flexner’s history of American painting covers the period from 1760 to 1835. Although the author provides entertaining sketches of the flamboyant Benjamin West, the cantankerous Stuart, and that enchanting jack-of-all-arts, Charles Willson Peale, his major concern is with the effect on colonial painters of their first contact with European art, and the reasons for the genteel blight that settled on American painting after the initial rush of development under European influence. Scholarly and witty, the book is rewarding reading in every respect. The black and white illustrations are very good of their kind.