. Trees in nature, myth and art; . are at work among them. Two of themen are resting from the heavy labour of cut-ting through the stout stem of a fallen tree witha double-handed saw. Any amateur who hastried his hand—or rather his arms and back atthis work—will sympathise with them. Thesmall branches of the tree have been tied upinto bunches. Farther away lies another largestem, that of a tree which has been felled. Aman is lopping off the smaller branches fromanother portion of it. The upper part of abranch of one of the standing trees is almostbroken off, and, hanging down, sways in
. Trees in nature, myth and art; . are at work among them. Two of themen are resting from the heavy labour of cut-ting through the stout stem of a fallen tree witha double-handed saw. Any amateur who hastried his hand—or rather his arms and back atthis work—will sympathise with them. Thesmall branches of the tree have been tied upinto bunches. Farther away lies another largestem, that of a tree which has been felled. Aman is lopping off the smaller branches fromanother portion of it. The upper part of abranch of one of the standing trees is almostbroken off, and, hanging down, sways in thewind. The pathos of the dying, dead andfelled or fallen trees is echoed by an old womanwho is filling her apron with sticks for fire-wood, the need for which is emphasised by thesnow-shower that is whitening the landscape. Two Scots pines in the Liber plate Inver-ary Castle, make ample amends for thesouthern gentleness of manner given to theirtwo brothers in Crossing the Brook. Theyhave been bent by the force of many a gale. TREES IN MODERN PAINTING 247 blowing in from the sea. Not only have theirlighter branches and twigs been bent over, butso also have their stems, when not far abovethe ground. In the oil-painting Apollo and the Python,and the Liber plate Jason, the monstershalf-hidden among the trees are made moreterrible by huge, fallen and riven trunks, andbroken branches which bear witness to theirterrible, evil power. Dragons of the prime could not havewrought more havoc amid trees than do theavalanches, the fall of rocks, and the fiercestorms among the Alps. There the firs andpines have to struggle hard to maintain a bareexistence; and here again Turner felt deeplythe pathos—the tragic pathos—of the battlefor life under such terribly adverse is what Ruskin, writing in ModernPainters of the Liber plate Arveron, saysabout this struggle: The soil of the pine issubject to continual change; perhaps the rockin which it is rooted splits in frost and
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidtreesinnaturemyt00phyt
