Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/311

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN ART scientific and mechanical genius; conquering, with the irresistible impulse of a new people, every physical obstacle that lay in their way, and building up the richest and most powerful community the world has ever known. Its early struggles are now apparently over, and its surplus wealth is daily increasing. The average of comfort is high and the physical well-being of the people seems practically assured. Whenever in the course of history a nation attains to this stage of development, it begins to reach out toward the ideal, to demand more of life and better than simple food and shelter. This is precisely what is taking place in America to-day. There is a growing demand for beauty in all its forms; for the adornment of our public buildings;—for galleries of paintings and statuary, for museums containing porcelains, [245]