inter and the best in the world for the student, since the ideas of
values and envelopment are ever present. In this saturated air the minute
particles of moisture which, in the case of rain or fog can affect the
obliteration of objects, partially accomplishes it at all times, with the
result that objects seem to _swim in atmosphere._

In such a landscape perspective of value and color is easily observed,
making positive the separation of objects. The painter, under these
conditions, is independent of linear perspective to give depth to his
work, which being one of the cheap devices of painting he avoids as much
as possible.

It is because aerial perspective is paintable and the other sort is not
that artists shun the clear altitudes of Colorado where all the year one
can see for eighty miles and, on the Atlantic border, wait the summer
through for the fuller atmosphere which the fall will bring, that by its
tender envelopment the vividness and detail which is characteristic of the
American landscape may give place to what is serviceable to the purposes
of painting.

It is because of misunderstanding on this point that we of the Western
Hemisphere may wrongly challenge foreign landscape, judging it upon the
natural aspect of our own country. The untravelled American or he who
has "been there" without seeing things, is not aware that distinctly
different conditions prevail in Europe than with us, especially above
latitude 40 deg..

Advantage in the paintability of subject therefore lies distinctly with
the European artist, and it may be because he has to labor against these
odds that the American landscapist has forged to the front and is now
leading his European brethren. It must, however, be acknowledged that he
acquired what he knows concerning landscape from the art and nature of
Europe--from Impressionism with its important legacy of color, which has
been acknowledged in varying degree by all our painters, and from the
"school of 1830," on which is based the tonal movement of the present.

Other than perspective of values, no importance should be attached to that
which, with the inartistic mind, is regarded so important a quality. The
art instruction which the common school of the past generation offered was
based on perspective, its problems, susceptible of never ending
circumventions, being spread in an interminable maze before the student.
Great respect for this "lion in the path" was a natural result an