584 



TJic Country Gaitlcinaiis MagarAnc 



that notwithstanding it, they are all painted 

 Tvath the grey silvery bark of the young tree. 

 They are all large trunked trees, as big as a 

 full-grown oak, often cut down, riven, or 

 turning up at the end the sawn surface of its 

 red-hued timber, and usually with some per- 

 son in a red cloak sitting on it, like the some- 

 thing on Wouverman's grey horses. Now, it 



greenish skin of the young twigs — one of them 

 the silvery glossy white bark which Ruysdael 

 paints, and which with us is confined to the 

 youth of the tree. It is shewn in fig. 3, 

 (which, although taken from a photograph, is 

 not quite so characteristic as we should have 

 liked.) As the tree gets older the bark 

 assumes a totally different character — that 



looks like heresy to question the accuracy of shewn in fig. 4. Every bit of silver is gone, 

 Ruysdael's painting from nature. Every touch and cracked off from the lower part of the 



tree. We must go half up the tree now to see 

 it, where it still flourishes as before. Perhaps 

 in some districts, of which Holland is one, 

 the tree grows faster and bigger than here in 

 a shorter time, and assumes the proportions 

 given to it by Ruysdael before the bark cracks 

 up. The alternative supposition, that Ruys- 

 dael should have painted these large silver- 



Fi;. 2. —Scots Fir, 

 upper part. 



Fir, near the gr juad. 



breathes of nature ; and yet we cannot help 

 it, but we never saw birch trees of a size that 

 a. man could sit on bearing the silvery bark 

 that Ruysdael gives them. The bark of trees 

 of such a size with us is old and cracked. 

 We can understand that that would be of no 

 use to him — it is only for the silvery bark that 

 he wants them , but certainly with us old trees 

 have not got it. In this country the birch 

 bears two kinds of barks besides the first 



Fig. 4.— Birch, full grown. 



Stemmed beeches from imagination, is some- 

 thing too heterodo.x to be tolerated for a 

 moment. 



