202 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



scape, and of trees as an important feature in 

 landscape, what they felt and saw in this way, 

 and therefore what they pictured, was far re- 

 moved from the landscape and tree-painting of 

 modern times. 



We fare little better when we come to early 

 Christian and mediaeval art. In the chapter 

 of the third volume of Modern Painters en- 

 titled ^' Of the Novelty of Landscape," Ruskin 

 imagines the reader to make his first acquaint- 

 ance of modern landscape painting in the room 

 of the Old Water Colour Society, and pictures 

 his surprise to find, comparing the paintings 

 there with those of Greece, Rome and the 

 Middle Ages, that ''mountains, instead of 

 being used only as a blue ground for the relief 

 of the heads of saints, were themselves the 

 exclusive subjects of reverent contemplation ; 

 that their ravines, and peaks, and forests, were 

 all painted with an appearance of as much 

 enthusiasm as had formerly been devoted to 

 the dimples of beauty, or the frowns of ascetic- 

 ism ; and that all the living interest which was 

 still supposed necessary to the scene, might be 

 supplied by a traveller in a slouched hat, a 

 beggar in a scarlet cloak, or, in default of these. 



