Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/24

 certainty the character of the Oriental from the character of his art. By reversing the same reasoning we reach the conclusion that the simple existence of our Aryan ancestors (lived close to nature in the constant companionship of elemental things) has found expression in the landscape art of their remote descendants. The artistic temperament is no growth of a day. It has its roots in the far-away beginnings of a people, and we make no unwarranted presumption in asserting that the landscape or marine painter of to-day is at last giving expression to the groping instincts and ideals of his cave-dwelling forbears. The blinding storms with which they battled, the mountains they scaled in the pursuit of game, the waves they rode in their primitive canoes, the hard winters that froze their blood, and the soft spring suns that warmed them,