Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/64

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

LANDSCAPE PAINTING

"vibration" in a picture, it is true, because without vibration there can be no light, but may it not be possible to secure the necessary vibration without loss of "quality," that charm of surface with which we would not willingly part?

There are many, many paths by which the problem may be approached. Indeed, one of the chief delights of the art of painting lies in the fact that each artist does, and of necessity must, invent his own technique; for his personal technique is an inalienable part of the personal vision which makes his art his own. Nevertheless there are in a broad sense only four general methods of painting with oil colors, from which (used either in their direct and simple expression or infinitely varied and compounded) all of our personal technical methods must be drawn. First we may mention the method used by so many of

[36]