170 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



inimitable in the quantity of life and truth 

 obtained by about a quarter of a minute's 

 work, but beginning to show the faulty vague- 

 ness and carelessness of modernism. The 

 stems, though beautifully free, are not thoroughly 

 drawn nor rounded ; and in the mass of the 

 tree, though well formed, the tremulousness 

 and transparency of leafage are lost." Hard- 

 ing's method, he further says, cannot "express 

 such ultimate truths ; his execution, which, in 

 its way, no one can at all equal, ... is yet 

 sternly limited in its reach, being originally 

 based on the assumption that nothing is to 

 be delicately drawn, and that the method is 

 only good which insures specious incom- 

 pletion ". 



I recollect once looking at a water-colour 

 drawing of Harding's with an artist who was 

 in his student days when Harding was painting, 

 writing and teaching, and a younger friend, not 

 an artist, to whom Harding was little more 

 than a name, and his method of tree-drawing 

 not even a tradition. The older man praised 

 the drawing; he was even enthusiastic about 

 its merits. To the younger one it was only 

 mannered and superficial. To myself, who 



