. Trees in nature, myth and art; . ntly of figures, not as a merebackground to them, a subordinate elementonly, and only formally treated. He hardlyquite passes the boundary and becomes in anyconsiderable part of his work a landscapepainter; but he is a keenly observant and sym-pathetic painter of landscape. His trees are remarkable, not only for therendering of stem and branch and leafage, butbecause in size and tone and value, they taketheir right place in the landscape. We are faraway, in his pictures, from the formal toy-treesof the fifteenth-century Italians; and while wefeel Botticelli t
. Trees in nature, myth and art; . ntly of figures, not as a merebackground to them, a subordinate elementonly, and only formally treated. He hardlyquite passes the boundary and becomes in anyconsiderable part of his work a landscapepainter; but he is a keenly observant and sym-pathetic painter of landscape. His trees are remarkable, not only for therendering of stem and branch and leafage, butbecause in size and tone and value, they taketheir right place in the landscape. We are faraway, in his pictures, from the formal toy-treesof the fifteenth-century Italians; and while wefeel Botticelli to have been reaching after thetruth, we are ready to declare that Titian hasattained it. And a large measure of truth hedid, indeed, attain. This is evinced, in such pictures of his,in our National Gallery, as Bacchus andAriadne, Noli me Tangere, and TheRepose, though they also show that he wouldnot sacrifice tone and harmonious colour to theliteral rendering of fact. Still Ruskin canpraise the botanical accuracy of the flowers in. TREES IN PAINTING 219 the foreground of the Bacchus and Ariadne,while noting that there is given nothing be-yond the simple forms and hues of the flowers,even those hues themselves being simplifiedand broadly rendered. He ranks Titian withCorreggio and Giorgione as having accom-plished the difficult task of rightly paintinga leaf, though it put him to thoughtfultrouble. But Titians distant branches, hesays, are ponderous flakes as if covered withsea-weed, while Veroneses and Raphaels areconventional, being exquisitely ornamental ar-rangements of small perfect leaves. Titians trees tell much of their lifes can see how they have been affected bythe nature of their situation ; broken boughsdeclare the losses they have had; new shootstell of the efforts they have made to recoupthemselves. Was Titians observation of treesquickened by the fact that his brother Fran-cesco was a timber merchant ? As the twowalked together in the woods, the severelyu
Size: 1495px × 1672px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidtreesinnaturemyt00phyt
