Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/163

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ON FRAMING PICTURES A is a convention—an illusion. We take a few crude materials, a square of canvas, some earthy pigments, and by a sort of artistic legerdemain we propose to make those materials disappear and to persuade the spectator that he is looking through the frame and out over the sunny landscape beyond. If the magician is clever enough, if he observes carefully the laws of color, of values, and of refraction, he may succeed fairly well. But the slightest thing will break the spell. A scratch across the sky, a little indentation, and the illusion disappears; for the observer has become conscious of the surface of the canvas. The rough edge of the [123]