142 



HOKTICULTURE 



January 31, 1914 



Do You Want To Be An Artist? 



Did you ever read of the famous Persian carpet of 

 gems, captured by the Saracens? The ground work 

 was of rich brocade woven with silk, mingled with 

 threads of gold. This carpet was one of the marvels of 

 the world. It was four hundred and fifty feet long by 

 ninety feet wide. It was designed to imitate a garden 

 of flowers. Thus earth's richest gems were made to 

 pay deference to floral loveliness. The leaves were 

 formed of emeralds and other green stones, while the 

 buds and blooms were composed of pearls, rubies and 

 sapphires and other rich gems of fabulous worth, the 

 cost reaching to a hundred millions. 



The one who can put a beautiful landscape on canvas, 

 who can paint the carnation or the rose so as to faintly 

 represent them and wlio can arrest the procession of 

 flowers as they pass by, and put them on perpetual ex- 

 hibition is a genius. Any man who could go into our 

 great floral parks and put the varied expressions of the 

 peony, the phlox, the gaillardia and columbine, with the 

 radiant and stately delphinium, upon a canvas so the 

 whole scene would represent a perpetual summer, would 

 immortalize himself. He who copies nature most faith- 

 fully wins the greatest renown. But the original 

 transcends the copy, and you can produce the original, 

 while the artist can be at his best only a feeble imitator. 

 Take a live flower in all the prodigality of its loveliness 

 — a living, breathing thing, exhaling that delicious 

 fragrance. When it goes into the picture it can only 

 be a corpse of itself. It cannot breathe — no aroma 

 floats around it. It is dead. You can stand before the 

 very highest productions of art in the effort to portray 

 the floral world, and you are not in the presence of real- 

 ity. You simply see the effigies of things beautiful. So 

 nature rises supremely above art, and the painter can 

 only touch the hem of our garments. 



Did you ever watch tlie flowers as they were making 

 their toilets? No lady of fashion displays more ex- 

 quisite taste or greater care in adornment. There must 

 be a touch here and another there. The outer petals 

 must be just so large, the inner must wear just such 

 colors. Watch the La TulijD€ peony unfold. Did ever 

 maiden before her glass show greater skill or pay more 

 attention to detail. First you see a swelling bud, the 

 surface interlaced with green and red. Then the ball 

 expands, bound in bands of delicate pink and crimson. 

 Look again, what a marvel of loveliness ! Now the ball 

 opens showing a lovely form of delicate flesh and car- 

 mine. Now it breathes and the breath has such sweet- 

 ness. You look again and it is changing. At first it is 

 the blush of the morning; then comes purest white with 

 now and then a dash of red, and slowly it fades 

 away dying so gTacefully and by its side another is 

 going through the same process. Look around you, 

 see the columbines, the lilies, the majestic Oriental pop- 

 pies all busily at work, intent as blooming girls to put 

 on their choicest garments. You can call these things 

 into life, but where in all the wide earth is the genius 

 who can transcribe this work — these everchanging robes 

 of beautj' — yea, the life of these radiant hosts that put 

 themselves on dress parade to reward you for your 

 interest on their behalf? Never warm-hearted maiden 

 in the radiant glow of her first love ever tried to make 

 herself more attractive than these dainty flowers, which 

 array themselves in all the witchery of their loveliness, 

 that they may give you welcome. 



Wliat would you think of a picture on a vast scale 100 

 by 200 feet, every portion of which was aglow with the 

 clearest and finest representations of the choicest gar- 

 den of flowers? Such a production would put a man 



at the very front of his profession. A building would 

 be erected for it and crowds would come to visit it. 

 What if he could so reproduce them that the spectator 

 would breath their very breath and could see them mak- 

 ing their toilet ! Now it is possible for you, my friend, 

 be you man or woman, boy or girl, in one-tenth of the 

 time it would take to train a painter, to reproduce the 

 living forms in all their delicacy, with the tints of the 

 rainbow woven into their garments with touchings and 

 peneilings and tracery, far more exquisite than ever 

 came to human genius. 



See that Oriental poppy. It is seven inches across. 

 It is a flame fashioned into a flower of dazzling bright- 

 ness. Look within. See those delicate, tremulous 

 stamens. See that seed pod. Could human skill mould 

 its equal ? See those peneilings all done up in jet. Put 

 it on canvas? No! Such an object is the despair of 

 the artist. What an immense amount of the highest 

 skill nature displays in making that single flower and 

 yet last year you got a little root like a parsnip, the size 

 of a pencil, and lo, there is your reward. Your skill 

 and success are such no human sldll can fairly repre- 

 sent. So you are an artist, far transcending the mere 

 copying art. All around you are those masses evoked 

 by your skill. No deft hand, however, well-trained can 

 produce them. You see an interpretation of God's love 

 to man. Every radiant, graceful form is but an ex- 

 pression of Ilis precious "thoughts" to us. You may 

 never be a painter but you can be a florist. With a 

 little effort you can take a piece of unsightly brown 

 earth for yowT canvas and put upon it a fairer scene 

 than ever fell from painter's brush. This is not all. 

 You stand in the very gateway of the eternal beauty. 

 You are a co-worker with God, with the great artist who 

 paints life, who puts the resplendent bow on the brow of 

 tlie storm, who hangs the m.antle of splendor on the 

 sun, who tints the mountains of cloud with amber and 

 amethyst, as they stand sentinel of the dying day. Is it 

 not wonderful that this Artist of everlasting beauty 

 will come down and work with you, and second all your 

 efforts? 



You plant the seeds and bulbs, and wield the hoe, 

 and the simple instrument is a wand in the hand of a 

 king. You touch the earth and miracles of beauty 

 spring up. Then the unseen brushes begin their work. 

 In the sweet, still and dewy morning, in the calmness 

 of the night, and in the heat of the noon day He works 

 with you. 



Plant the rose, the peony, the tulip and the colum- 

 bine and care for them, and lo, the silent partner comes 

 without noise or heraldry, and the blessed work goes on. 

 Soon a thrill comes to you. You feel the honor of it, 

 the glory of it — this partnership with Him who paints 

 the splendors of the suns. All unconsciously you feel 

 an ache and eagerness as though some unknown pres- 

 sure were brought to hear upon you, and you are 

 mightily moved with the fact that it is the yearning of 

 God to reveal Himself through your brain and hands 

 and hoe. He wants to be introduced to the world so 

 people can understand him. 



Yes. in a short time you can rival the splendor of that 

 famous carpet which was the world's wonder and for 

 weeks revel in its delights, allured by its resistless fasci- 

 nation. How you will rise in your own estimation — 

 thankful that you can invoke the beauty of the Lord to 

 glorify your garden of delight. 



York, Net. 



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