over
and over. Anything new is a departure, and a departure from the
standard in the selection of a subject is as dangerous as a departure
in the cut of a coat or the color of one's gloves--or was as dangerous
until Sargent, Abbey, Frank Brangwyn, and men of that ilk smashed the
current idols and taught men a new religion. A small congregation, it
is true, but big enough for them to gather together to sing hymns of
praise and pray for better things.

Let me illustrate what I mean by conforming to the standard. Three
years ago I was painting near a village, an hour from Paddington--a
lovely spot on the River Thames. This quaint settlement is one of
those little, waterside, old-fashioned-inn places, all drooping trees,
punts, millions of roses, tumble-down cottages, stretches of meadows
with the silver thread of the Thames glistening in the sunlight. There
is also a bridge, a wonderful old brick bridge, stepping across on
three arches, mould-incrusted, blackened by time, masses of green
rushes clustered about its feet--a most picturesque and lovable
bridge, known to about everybody who has ever visited that section of
England.

I had been there for a week, making my headquarters at the White Hart,
when my attention was attracted to a man across the river--it is quite
narrow here--a painter, evidently, who seemed to be surrounded by a
collection of canvases. He went through the same motions every day,
and then my curiosity got the better of me and I went over to see him.

Spread out on the grass lay eight canvases, all of one size, and each
one containing a picture of the old brick bridge.

"But why eight all alike?" I asked in astonishment.

"Because I can't sell anything else. I am known as the Sonning Bridge
painter. I've been at it for twenty years."

It is with this sort of thing, either in the selection of a subject,
in its treatment, or in its handling, that I have but little sympathy,
even though the great Ruskin, in speaking of this same English
water-color school, the one I have catalogued for you, insists that it
is the only "true school of landscape which has yet existed," an
appreciation which is followed by the outburst that "from the last
landscape of Tintoret, if we look for life we will pass at once to the
first landscape of Turner." It is, of course, only one of Ruskin's
dictatorial statements, admirable when written, because it was read
and approved by a class who knew no better and who accepted h