Art Out-of-Doors 



If they form a picture, it will give us the 

 same sort of satisfaction that we get from 

 a good landscape on canvas ; indeed, it will 

 do more than this, for the living picture 

 will reveal new beauties day by day with 

 the changing seasons, hour by hour with 

 the shifting shadows. But if they form 

 an inharmonious, unorganized mass, they 

 will please us only by the beauty of this de- 

 tail and that ; and even their details will be 

 intrinsically less delightful than had they 

 formed part of an agreeable general effect. 

 Ruskin defines a good composition as one 

 in which every detail helps the general 

 beauty of effect ; but it may also be defined, 

 conversely, as one which brings out the 

 highest beauty of each of its details. 



A glance at any American town or sum- 

 mer-colony of villas shows how deficient we 

 are in artistic feeling when we deal with 

 natural objects. The surroundings of our 

 homes have not improved as rapidly as the 

 homes themselves. Even in these we are 

 still far from a general average of excellence. 

 But I think we are on the right road to 

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