The second powerful influence helping the artist to acquire knowledge is, as Constable suggested, art itself. The student while pursuing the plodding course of training in the art school and later in a wider field as an artist, is not only searching out in nature the qualities of grace and harmony, but his eyes are constantly turned in the direction of the accumulated records of art. He studies with assiduous care and thought in the great works of all times, the qualities, the harmonies, the character wrested from nature by the able painters and sculptors of the past. Myriads have tried and failed to know and master nature during the past few hundred years, and only the few who have succeeded have left the record of their success. All the weak productions have gone into oblivion. To these really great works the painter and sculptor turn again and again, patiently, persistently, unfalteringly, sometimes through hours of silent study at other times by earnest effort to copy, but always with a single purpose in mind--to know and master the secrets of the masters. Little by little, always referring the master to nature for confirmation or proof, the artist struggles upward to a more consummate understanding of the works of nature, but he never forsakes or belittles this supreme source of all his power and knowledge. [SN: _Winslow Homer_] I recall asking Winslow Homer if he did not think the beauty existing in nature must be discovered and reproduced by the painter. Quick as a flash he answered: “Yes, but the rare thing is to find a painter who knows a good thing when he sees it.” On another occasion we were picking our way along the Maine coast, over the shelving rocks he painted so often and with such insight and power, when I suddenly said: “Homer, do you ever take the liberty, in painting nature, of modifying the colour of any part?” I recall his manner and expression perfectly. He stopped quickly and exclaimed: “Never! Never! When I have selected the thing carefully I paint it exactly as it appears.” During our talk he emphasized, however, the importance of selection. “You must not paint anything you see--you must wait and wait patiently for a particular effect, and then when it comes, if you have sense enough to know it when you do see it--well, that’s all there is to that.”