Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/137

QUALITY was his message; and the coarse and often repellent surface texture of his pictures was in absolute harmony with the character of his subjects. These, while not precisely tragic, were invariably sober and serious, with the large dignity of primitive things.

But the fact that an enamel-like beauty of surface was not in keeping with the art of Millet is no valid proof that it has not a legitimate place of its own in painting. Indeed, the whole question of the relative value of things in art is here involved. The time is no longer when the figure painter can look down upon the landscape painter, when the painter of vast historical compositions has his special place reserved for him at the head of the board, while the painter of mere portraits must be content with a seat below the salt. It is the intrinsic beauty of the work itself that [101]