Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/27

 only adequate, but frequently artistic and admirably beautiful. Nevertheless, it was not landscape at all in the modern sense of the word—landscape as we know it. It was conventional in form, false in color, and devoid of atmosphere and luminosity.

Not until the early years of the nineteenth century, and then in far-away England, did the first true school of landscape make its appearance. A small group of painters, the best known of whom perhaps were Constable, Crome, and Bonington, went out into the fields, and brought back pictures which were the first true impressions of out-door nature ever placed upon canvas. Their achievement was unique. Indeed, it was one of the most astounding intellectual feats of all time, and it has never received a fraction of the praise which is its just due.