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"This volume in the acclaimed Library of American Art presents a substantial number of Morse's paintings, examins them critically, and traces the artistic and intellecutal life of an intriguing man who not only changed history with his invention, but recorded history with his painting. That it was a record of American people rather than American events was a disappointment for Morse. It should not be for us. We can recognize, as James Thomas Flexner did thirty years ago, that Morse practiced portraiture "without affection [and] gave full sway to that creative realism" which was the mark of his genius." -- Front flap