. Artists and Arabs : or, sketching in sunshine . nguish between the true and conventionalrendering of the form, colour and character, ofpalm-trees, aloes and cacti? First of the palm. Do we not soon discoverhow much more of beauty, of suggested strength,of grace, lightness and variety of colour and tex-ture, there is in this one stem, that we vainly tryto depict in a wood engraving, than we had pre-viously any conception of; and how opposed tofacts are the conventional methods of drawing Chap. VI. ALOES AND PALMS. 121 palm-trees (often with a straight stem and uni-form leaves looking like a f
. Artists and Arabs : or, sketching in sunshine . nguish between the true and conventionalrendering of the form, colour and character, ofpalm-trees, aloes and cacti? First of the palm. Do we not soon discoverhow much more of beauty, of suggested strength,of grace, lightness and variety of colour and tex-ture, there is in this one stem, that we vainly tryto depict in a wood engraving, than we had pre-viously any conception of; and how opposed tofacts are the conventional methods of drawing Chap. VI. ALOES AND PALMS. 121 palm-trees (often with a straight stem and uni-form leaves looking like a feather broom on astraight stick), which wemay find in almost anyillustrated book repre-senting Eastern scenes,from Constantinople tothe Sea of Galilee. Take, for instance, asa proof of variety in co-lour and grandeur of as-pect, this group of palm-trees ^ that have stoodguard over the Maho-medan tombs for per-haps a hundred years; stained with time, andshattered with their fierce battle with the stormsthat sweep over the promontory with terrible. ^ The palm-stem we have sketched is of a different variety andless formal in character than those generally seen in the East ;nevertheless, there is endless variety in the forms and leaves of anyone of them, if we judge from photographs. R 122 ARTISTS AND ARABS. Chap. VI. force/ Look at the beauty of their lines, at theglorious colour of their young leaves, and thedeep orange of those they have shed, like theplumage of some gigantic bird; one of theirnumber has fallen from age, and lies crosswayson the ground, half-concealed in the long grassand shrubs, and it has lain there to our know-ledge, undisturbed for years. To paint the sunsetting on these glowing stems, and to catch theshadows of their sharp pointed leaves, as they aretraced at one period of the day on the white wallsof the tombs, is worth long waiting to be able tonote down ; and to hit the right tint to depictsuch shadows truly, is an exciting triumph to of the al
Size: 1197px × 2088px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidartistsarabs, bookyear1870
