ABSTRACT
Albert Barnes understood the power of words to bring about change. In December of 1919, Barnes invited him for a weekend to see pictures and discuss a proposition for more remunerative employment than writing for the New Republic. The heart of The Art in Painting is an analysis of form. It was a way of looking at art that had much in common with the way Barnes listened to the music of African Americans: for fundamental aesthetic qualities without reliance on historical context and without regard for the biographical facts of the artist’s life. Barnes considered color the most important because it “comes nearest being the raw material of painting.” The best part of the discussion of line and composition, like that of color, in The Art in Painting lies in illustrations from the works of individual painters. Barnes dismissed the earliest painting done in America by Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, the Peales, and Thomas Sully as “utterly uninspired.”.
