Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/317

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN ART pioneer in fresh fields, an adventurer seeking new Eldorados. If he now goes afield, therefore, it is because he knows that in the domain of indoor figure-painting there are few undiscovered countries. This branch of art was exploited long ago by the old masters, and their achievements were so transcendent that any modern painter who sets out to equal or excel them in their own chosen line must be endowed with a large share of courage and self-confidence. Another cause of this universal return to nature is doubtless the fact that our lives are not, humanly speaking, so beautiful as they once were. Our clothing is no longer picturesque. The advent of farm machinery has destroyed much of the pastoral and bucolic beauty of country life. The sowing and reaping and binding and threshing that were [249]