200 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



near Sparta, on which, are represented, in relief, 

 men and wild cattle ; trees are also represented, 

 and with a truth and spirit equal at least to 

 anything that we find in early mediaeval art. 



Little remains to us of the painting of classi- 

 cal Greece, but it is certain that the rendering 

 of landscape never got beyond a quite primitive 

 stage ; and we look in vain for realistic and 

 sympathetic representation of trees. Both in 

 sculpture and painting the human figure almost 

 alone had interest for the Greek, and to this 

 everything else remained merely accessory. 

 In his Grammar of Greek Art Prof Percy 

 Gardner points out that, on the Greek vases, 

 locality was little more than symbolically re- 

 presented. A pillar stood for a temple or 

 palace, a tripod or altar for a sacred place, a 

 crab or a shell-fish for the sea-shore. A single 

 tree would do duty for a forest. There was 

 often even less than this, for the various features 

 of landscape were frequently personified as 

 men or daemons or nymphs. Much as we 

 have learned in art from the Greeks, it is clear 

 that we must not go to them for instruction in 

 the pictorial representation of trees. 



Grseco- Roman art shows an advance in the 



