Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/281

THE TRUE IMPRESSIONISM degrade him to the level of the mere handcraftsman. At any rate, Millet's previously quoted saying to the effect that technique should never open shop for itself, that it should always hide modestly behind the idea to be expressed is one of the eternal truths of art. In the work of his own great period the technique is so rough as to prove conclusively his personal contempt for mere surface quality. And this crudity must have been voluntary. We may go even further and say that it was intentional; for in his own brilliant youth there were none so clever, none so habile as he.

In the case of our own Winslow Homer also, the thing to be said is often so vital, the vision so clear-cut, that although the paint is simply flung at the canvas, we don't care a fig. The mood has been rendered—the message has [219]