Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/75

VIBRATION only a compromise—that owing to this compromise our best technique of vibration remains at the present time more or less obtrusive, and that any technique which obtrudes itself is to that extent bad technique; for technique, as Millet so truly said, "should always hide itself modestly behind the thing to be expressed."

Finally let us frankly admit the fact that vibration has little to do with atmosphere in a picture (in spite of much wordy argument to the contrary). A Whistler nocturne, for instance, which is painted without the slightest vibration, or any attempt at broken color, may swoon in the most exquisite bath of atmosphere, while a vibrant Monet, with a few hard edges, may lack all atmospheric quality. Atmosphere in a painting is only secured by the use (conscious or [45]