Yes, many men have painted, many great artists have painted, without earning the title which excellence gives.  Overbeck, the apostle artist, whose rooms are sacred with the presence of the divine, never earned that name.  Nor did thousands who before him wrought patiently and earnestly.

We think that we have among us a man who has earned it.

What does this involve?  Somewhat more than the ability critically to distinguish colors and to use them skilfully.

Although practice may discipline and develop this power, there must exist an underlying physiological fitness, or all study and experience will be unavailing.  In many persons, the organization of the eye is such that there can be no correct perception of the value, relation, and harmony of hues.  There exists often an utter inability to perceive differences between even the primary colors.

The late sculptor Bartholomew declared himself unable to decide which of two pieces of drapery, the one crimson and the other green, was the crimson.  Nor was this the result of inexperience.  He had been for years familiar not only with Nature’s coloring, but with the works of the best schools of art, and had been in continual contact with the first living artists.

The instances of this peculiar blindness are exceptional, yet not more so than is the perfection of vision which enables the eye to discriminate accurately the innumerable tints derived from the three primitives.

Nothing can be finer than the sense of identity and harmony resulting from this exquisite organization.  We have been told that there is a workman at the Gobelin manufactory who can select twenty-two thousand tints of the material employed in the construction of its famous tapestries.  This capability is, of course, almost wholly dependent upon rare physical qualifications; yet it is the basis, the very foundation of a painter’s power.

Still, it is but the foundation.  An “eye for color” never yet made any man a colorist.

Perhaps there can be no severer test of this faculty of perception than the copying of excellent pictures.  And among the few successful copies which have been produced, Page’s stand unsurpassed.

The ability to perceive Nature, when translated into art, is, however, a possession which this painter shares with many.  Nor is he alone in the skill which enables him to realize upon his own canvas the effects which some master has rendered.

It is in the presence of Nature itself that a power is demanded with which mechanical superiority and physical qualifications have little to do.  Here the man stands alone,—­the only medium between the ideal and the outward world, wherefrom he must choose the signs which alone are permitted to become the language of his expression.  None can help him, as before he was helped by the man whose success was the parent of his own.  Here is no longer copying.