Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/189

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS to us if we only preserve our own integrity. This we must do in absolute sincerity and without any mental reservation. Even in the development of the conventional forms, which are the basis of all decorative art, we cannot with safety use the rules which were invented and tabulated by the older craftsmen. We must invent our own systems. Having analyzed our bird or our leaf or our flower, we must select as the groundwork of our conventional design the particular form or tint that appeals to us as the most beautiful or the most graceful or fitting; and just because we are Americans, just because of the mental difference between ourselves and the men of other nations, our selection would be different from the selection made from the same basic elements by a Japanese, a Persian, or a [145]