When American artists returned home from Paris, they had to devise ways to adapt the lessons they had learned to deal with different landscapes, light, and above all, different buyers and supporters.

American Impressionism became a favourite style, combining the bright colours and broken brushstrokes of French Impressionism with the more rigorous approach to drawing and the creation of a sense of solid form insisted on by most Parisian art teachers.

Frank Benson's portrait of his daughter Eleanor sums up this new approach: she is clean, healthy, and all-American, bathed in the sunshine of a New England summer. She embodies youthful optimism and the values of the New World as distinct from those of Europe.

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