Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/150

LANDSCAPE PAINTING a dinner given by a benevolent lover of art and artists, to which a dozen prominent painters were bidden, that they might explain their needs to an eminent chemist who was the guest of the evening. I shall not soon forget the bewilderment of the man of science at the end of the conference. In less than an hour he had received a dozen widely varying accounts of the needs of the profession, each one describing the special and individual needs of a special painter. Moreover, the discussion was so filled with gay and reckless persiflage, so shot through with wit and repartee, that it was hopeless to attempt to separate the light from the serious. It was a very gay party, but it advanced little the cause of sound color. If, therefore, artists are ever to secure the pigments which they need, the demand must come from some alien [112]