Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/287

THE TRUE IMPRESSIONISM ; but the blackbird's lay is sweet, and the thrush and the oriole fill the woods with melody. Even the homely robin and the linnet have modest little notes of their own which are pleasant to the ear of a dewy April morning. Of all the songsters in creation there is only one, I believe, whose lay is universally condemned—and that is the parrot." The greater the artist, I think, the more certain is he to cling religiously to nature, not only for his inspiration, but for the actual material of his creations. Rodin not long since said to an interviewer, "All my attention as an artist is devoted to reproducing exactly what I see in nature. I do not endeavor to 'express something.' Those who have a pre-conceived idea—an inspiration as they call it—are seldom able to render their ideal. Those, on the contrary, who [225]