THE LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFUL 



When we turn to the naturcil un- 

 tutored landscape we meet conditions con- 

 siderably different. The picture is here, to 

 a large degree at least, indeterminate. It 

 has no bounds and in general has no com- 

 position. If the natural landscape pleases 

 us, therefore, it is not by any balance of 

 parts producing an equilibrium of bodily 

 tensions. The pleasure must come from 

 qualities simpler and more elementary than 

 those of form. Still, the case is not without 

 parallel. Some people, savages at least, 

 enjoy formless music; and elementary tones 

 or colors, quite without form, may produce 

 sensibly agreeable effects even in the most 

 sophisticated of us. So, too, certain kinds 

 of literature are to a large degree formless. 

 Probably in the bulk of our reading we 

 are affected chiefly by content, and only 

 slightly by form. 



While it seems to imply a contradiction 

 of terms to speak of the natural landscape 

 as a work of art, we can not deny that it 

 does give the true aesthetic experience in 

 a very marked and emphatic way. One 

 great poet said, 



I will look up unto the hills whence cometh my 

 help. 



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