ABSTRACT
The basic difference between New York City and Rome is that the Italian state gives us credit. Until the beginning of the twentieth century the city was a subject almost completely unexplored in the art of the United States. For the American artist, and his patrons, art could be ennobling or inspiring, instructive, escapist, even terrifying or mystifying. There are seasons in Washington when it is even more difficult than usual to find out what is going on in the government. Possibly it is because nothing is going on, although a great many people seem to be working at it. Today virtually every part of the world is more urbanized than any region was in antiquity. Urbanization is so widespread, so much a part of industrial civilization, and gaining so rapidly, that any return to rurality, even with major catastrophes, appears unlikely.
