The Artist 



flowery May will be beautiful in green July, 

 and not discordant in harlequin October. 

 With form the labor is just as complicated. 

 If a landscape-painter's scene composes well 

 from one point of view it is good, for no 

 other point of view exists. But the land- 

 scape-gardener's scene is like a sculptor's 

 figure in the round : it must be beautiful 

 from as many points of view as encircling 

 footsteps may reveal. 



Nor, while thinking chiefly of his general 

 efl'ects, can the landscape-gardener ever sacri- 

 fice his details to them, as a painter most 

 laudably may. His public cannot be kept 

 at a given distance. He cannot generahze 

 his foreground and compel the eye to take 

 chief account of w^hat lies beyond it ; or, on 

 the other hand, make his foreground impor- 

 tant by elaboration, generalize his middle 

 distance, and think that layers of atmos- 

 phere will forever veil his background. 

 What is the background of a picture seen 

 from this point will be the foreground of a 

 picture seen from another point. Nothing, 

 large or small, can anywhere be slurred. 

 He must paint as with the brush of a Velas- 



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