Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/263

WHAT IS A GOOD PICTURE? masquerading under the name of the "art of the future" will win a permanent place in the regards of humanity. The beauty which is to endure must be sane and wholesome, because the human race is sound at heart and can be counted upon in the long run to reject anything which is essentially unhealthy or decadent. In the meantime all our æsthetic experience points to the fact that the new beauty does not destroy our love or appreciation of the old. A picture by Rembrandt or Velasquez meets to-day with as much admiration as if the "luminarist" or the "symbolist" school had not arisen. A thing that is once truly beautiful is always beautiful; and the painters of to-day can remain calmly confident that if they are true to their own ideals and to the spirit of their times, their output will be accorded the [205]