Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/256

LANDSCAPE PAINTING rule which has for years made the exhibitions of the National Academy of Design the poorest of their kind in the United States—that provision which exempts from the action of the jury certain pictures entered by Academicians and Associates—would long since have been abrogated; for, just as no man willingly or wittingly writes himself down an ass, so no painter would wittingly brand himself a duffer. In spite of this peculiar personal blindness (which seems to be incidental to the artistic temperament) when it comes to the work of other artists, painters are the best judges of painting. Of course due allowance must be made for personal idiosyncrasy and variation of taste. In art, as in music or gastronomy, taste varies infinitely according to individual temperament, or training. But just as a wise gourmet, to whose palate terrapin makes [200]