May — Trees and Politics. 159 



former centuries, and have only of late years had their 

 beauties reflected in the mimic world of painting. It 

 is not probable that, in illustrating these neglected yet 

 not less noble species, the artists of this generation have 

 had any feeling of hostility to the trees which their pre- 

 decessors studied, not too affectionately, but too exclu- 

 sively ; they have simply acted with that independence 

 of tradition and that large desire to study the whole of 

 Nature which are distinguishing characteristics of our 

 age in art, as in science and in literature. But now see 

 how they get abused and ill-spoken of for their large- 

 ness : — 



' It looks like a conspiracy. The painters of the old regime, 

 the artists who were faithful to tradition, sought for and hon- 

 ored certain beautiful and aristocratic trees, and considered 

 them alone worthy of the selection and the efforts of art ; the 

 majestic oak, the elegant poplar, the pompous pine, and the 

 funereal cypress. 



1 " Let us upset tradition ! " say the realists. " Down with 

 the trees that are symbols of superannuated and odious dis- 

 tinctions ! Let us lift up the humble and insignificant ; let us 

 open a broad way to the new ' couches sociales ' of the forests ; 

 there is the truth, the strength, and the honor of the societies 

 of the future ! " And with these fine reasonings we see the 

 rustic apple-tree, the shivering birch, the amphibious willow, 

 the crude and hard Spanish chestnut, come out of their enclo- 

 sures, or their rocks, to display themselves outrageously in gilt 

 frames on the walls of palaces and galleries that were never 

 built for them ! It is a new form of the democracy which is 

 about to overwhelm us. The populace of the woods puts 

 itself on the level of the populace of the faubourgs. It was 

 not enough to have beheld the noisy and unsavory crowds cast 



