Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/300

LANDSCAPE PAINTING Let us first clear the ground by rehearsing those points upon which both parties are agreed. All admit, of course, that art is the record of beauty in some one of its myriad forms, be it a Persian rug, a Japanese keramic, a Greek statue, or a modern oil-painting. In each case, if the beauty be of a sufficiently high order, the result is art. We all admit also that art is personality—that nature is only the crude material from which art is made. This crude material must be fused in the alembic of the human soul, mixed with the alloy of temperament, and colored with the artist's personality before it can be poured out into the final mould and receive the name of art. It is the artist's personality, in other words, that makes the art. And just according to the beauty or the individuality of his temperament will be the beauty or the [236]