Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/295

THE TRUE IMPRESSIONISM But this is, unfortunately, not the case. The facility is only apparent. The hard and sober reality is that the personal note is the most difficult of all things for an artist to grasp and to hold. It is only necessary to count over the number of our truly original artists (it can be done upon the ten fingers) to see how true this statement is. One of the oldest of our proverbs says that to err is human. It is also human, unfortunately, to be a sheep—to do as you see others do—to imitate the thing which you admire; and the sad result of this is that few ever learn to see the thing which lies out in the sunlight under their own very eyes. And this is why originality—why true impressionism will ever remain one of the rarest and most precious qualities in art.

Now it has doubtless been objected that the present chapter, while [231]