A Treasure for Art in Lebanon

An American artist of the first rank came to this country and found in it a lofty source that inspired her brush with a collection of masterly paintings. Here she is, confiding to us this delightful talk:

It has been among my greatest pleasures, throughout the two years I have spent with my husband in Lebanon, to paint the beautiful scenery of this country. Rarely does a landscape painter find, in any country of the world, such an abundance of scenes worthy of painting at short distances from one another. Mountain, sea, and sands; the foreign dress and faces; the ruins of bygone days; the beauty of Arab architecture with its red roofs, together with the natural scenery and whatever else the artist may imagine — all this exists in astonishing plenty.

What stirs the feelings most in these varied scenes is, to my mind, that brilliance and richness of the colors which nature has bestowed upon them, so that the artist must call on every color of his palette to do these views justice. And when he strains his imagination to perfect the picture he is painting in harmony and fidelity, as does every painter who is not content with a mere likeness between picture and model, he is given the chance to use the various colors his art and his feeling suggest to him. Everyone who has watched the sun at its setting over the sea, behind Beirut, turning to a rosy red and then to a pale blue, then a deep purple, then a luminous blue, and after that to the color of night, wishes it were possible to keep the magic of those moments forever. And the artist knows that such a scene inspires a desire to paint that cannot be overcome.

Wherever you go in the country you see beauty before you. In the north you see the Cedars, and Bsharri (birthplace of Gibran Khalil Gibran, the great Lebanese poet-artist, and his last resting place), and Ehden, and the rocky, winding Qadisha Valley, and the terraced mountains touching the shore, little villages scattered on their flanks with their red houses pressed one against another like clusters of grapes. As for the broad green Beqaa plain, with its varied colors, it is cut and parceled after the pattern of the mountains that surround it, and it holds the ancient ruins of Baalbek and the remains of the glories of some of the peoples of this land who lived and labored and then made way for those who came after them, the builders of successive cultures. The waters of the Mediterranean, as they tickle the shores of Lebanon, turn to a sharp turquoise, streaked with blues and greens and violets. The winter snows, in the clarity of this luminous Lebanese air, crown the heights of Sannin and Kneisseh and Hermon and the other mountains with a garment of blazing golden white. And the sweet waters gushing at Sir and Afqa, bursting from the bowels of the mountains, water the green valleys. Whichever way you turn in this immeasurably ancient land, you find in the landscape a freshness, a vitality, and a liveliness that stir the soul and the eye.

We have spent most of our week-ends visiting and painting the natural scenery in many places. And our adventures have been occasions of gladness and pleasure, above all for the Arab hospitality we met with, of which I can say that it has not been exaggerated, though a great deal has been written about it. In our trips through every part of the country, and in our mingling with the people of the villages and farms, I have met with so warm a welcome as makes me believe that this generous quality exists in all the children of this land. The women and girls lean down from their balconies to say to you as you pass, 'Please come in — welcome, and a hundred welcomes.' The men going by on foot or riding on the backs of their beasts greet you with 'Good morning' or 'Good evening.' And those of them who have been in America speak to you in English, saying: 'Won't you come in and take a cup of coffee? If you need anything, I will bring it to you. Tell me if I can run an errand for you or do you a service.'

As for the little girls, they offer you garden flowers and fruit. Once, when I was painting the red mountains behind Zahle, my painting stand set up under a tree in an empty field far from the village, I saw people appearing around me in a wondrous way, from where I know not. Then a village woman came with a basket full of grapes from the vine and a silvered copper vessel she had filled from the spring water, to wash the grapes with. This gracious welcome, which you meet wherever you go in every part of the country, makes every excursion full of gladness and delight.