THE AGE OF REDISCOVERY

In step with American's revived interest in their own past, art scholars have been diligently searching through dusty attics, small museums and the back rooms of antique shops to discover almost-forgotten artists of the 18th and 19th centuries. To show how impressive the results so far have been, the Cincinnati Art Museum this week opened an exhibition focused on twelve rediscovered American painters whose work was all but forgotten until 20 years ago. Ranging from colonial New England, where portraits by Robert Feke (1705-1750) were long assumed to be early Copleys, down to fool-the-eye works by William M. Harnett (1848-1892) and John F. Peto (1854-1907), the exhibition shows that U.S. artists in the past scored higher in imagination and craftsmanship than a forgetful country realized.

One outstanding example of an artist thus rescued from oblivion is the Pennsylvania Quaker Edward Hicks (1780-1849), whose primitive allegories (see color page) were unknown even to the leading painters of his own day. Not until 1930, when one of his paintings, Peaceable Kingdom (of which Hicks completed some 80 versions), was found in an antique-dealer's attic, was his name even known. The similarity of his work to Henri Rousseau's and a new appreciation of primitives, quickly placed Hicks as one of the most original of early American artists: the late French Painter Fernand Leger called him "the finest American of them all."

Even closer to the midstream of popular U.S. taste was Long Islander William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), who once noted in hsi diary: "I must paint such pictures as speak at once to the spectator . . . that will be understood in an instant." In paintings such as Banjo Player (opposite), Mount proved he knew his audience. Infused today with the nostalgic glow of yesteryear, they are kept just this side of sentimentalism by Mount's careful craftsmanship and observant eye. In their quiet way, they look good for many years to come.

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