Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/261

WHAT IS A GOOD PICTURE? the work in hand. He can employ the whole scale or he can reduce his choice to the few conventional symbols used in a beautiful Persian rug; the only imperative law being that he shall go direct to nature for his inspiration; the inevitable penalty of failure in this respect being the limbo of the imitator—the loss of all freshness, spontaneity, and personality. With this one restriction the artist's latitude is practically unlimited, for in a general sense art is any object made by man which is conceded by his fellow-man to be beautiful.

In regard to the picture, it is difficult to foresee at present just how far the average cultivated person will follow the artist into the region of pure symbolism; how few of the elements he will demand, and how much his own imagination will supply. When we remember that less than a generation ago the [203]