Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/43

 ists of the world, while those bereft are the color-blind.

Now we, as artists, could afford to ignore all this scientific side of the color question, were it not for the fact that it makes clear certain things which it is well for us to know. In the first place, it shows us the futility of any serious attempt to cultivate the sense of color. We are born with a certain given number of color-cones, and with just that allotment we must be content to go through life, for there is no known way of increasing their number, or of augmenting their efficiency. This efficiency may be decreased, however, either by a sudden shock, by paralysis, or by abuse of tobacco. In partial compensation for the depression is born of the knowledge of this ruthless law, is the further knowledge that the artistic personality of a painter must be chiefly credited to