Interpreting the Out-of-Doors

Interpreting the Out-of -Doors By Prof. Harrison R. Merrill, Brigham Young University THE out-of-doors, like all masterpieces of art, must have its interpreter. Nature is so prolific, so prodigal with forms and colors that one must have an eye and a mind capable of segregating the various pictures into artistic unities if one is to see the out-of-doors in artistic proportions. Those who go out and merely "look" will see a riot of color, a jumble of form, probably pleasing, but lacking that satisfying unity so necessary to the mind. It is true that God framed the landscape with the blue sky, the rim of mountains, the froth of clouds in order that even the untrained — artistically — can get something from the scene that is inspiring and uplifting; but, like Jesus in his parables, he has kept his most delicate, his most intensely emotional views for the "seeing eye and the understanding heart." In other words, as Photo by W. P. Cottam The path to University Hill, B. Y. U., Provo, Utah.

842 IMPROVEMENT ERA Mathew Arnold declares, "excellence is not common or abundant," and that holds true of vision as well as of other things. Artists, through long association with nature, careful study of form and color, have become the high priests of the out-of-doors, the seers whose eyes have been opened to the inner beauties. Some men and women are born with this uncanny sight which interprets in- stantly the inner kingdom. Whittier, I think it was, said: "Touched by a light that hath no name, A glory never sung, Aloft on sky and mountain-tops Are God's great pictures hung." True, but some of his finest works are found in secret places under the very eyes of men. I have been astonished many times when one of these seers has shown me, under my very gaze, a pic- ture which resolves itself from the chaos surrounding it into a beau- tiful harmonic unity that has touched my very soul. My mother was one of these seers and to me she will be forever blessed. Recently I walked with one of these interpreters. We followed an ordinary ditch filled with muddy water, lined with a riot of growing things. We came upon three girls enjoying the shadows of the common willows and Cottonwood trees. The seer clutched my arm. "Stop!" he commanded. I was startled. I felt that I had stepped on hallowed ground. "Look at that!" He pointed, and slowly, as the negative on a developing film appears as from the invisible, a beautiful unity formed before my eyes. It was as if the soul of the picture shone through. I saw no longer an ordinary ditch, but an artistic stream; no longer mere willows and wild rose bushes and cottonwoods, but greens shot through with light and shadow. In other words, when I shut out the sky, the hill beyond, the houses and fields below — as beautiful as all of them seemed — I be- held an artistic unity. A seer had allowed me to climb Mount Sinai and to know that I had climbed it. I have formed this rule of life: When a seer says come, I go, for I know with him I can pass into the inner kingdom where artistic unities change my muddy ditches, my cement paths and com- mon trees into paradises of beauty; and with him I can pass from glory to glory.