Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/262

LANDSCAPE PAINTING work of Corot and of Millet was nearly incomprehensible to the cultivated French public; that even the artist juries refused it admission to the Salon; that twenty years since those who freely accepted the work of Monet and Sisley were few indeed, we may confidently look forward to a time when only the most essential symbols of beauty will be required of the artist. But what exact direction this synthetic development will take we can only conjecture at the present time. Whether Matisse and his followers in France to-day are the true prophets crying in the wilderness the future alone can demonstrate. If this group finally makes good it will be because they have discovered something which is fundamentally true and human, something which is sincerely (if blindly) desired by the race at large. It is quite certain that no abnormality [204]