TREES IN PAINTING 203 



even by a heron or a wild duck ". To a knight 

 or monk of the Middle Ages, he says, the sight 

 of modern landscape paintings would probably 

 suggest the reflection, ''here are human beings 

 spending the whole of their lives in making 

 pictures of bits of stone and runlets of water, 

 withered sticks and flying fogs, and actually 

 not a picture of the gods or the heroes ! none 

 of the saints or the martyrs! none of the 

 angels and demons! none of councils or 

 battles, or any other single thing worth the 

 thought of a man ! trees and clouds, indeed ! 

 as if I should not see as many trees as I cared 

 to see, and more, in the first half of my day's 

 journey to-morrow, or as if it mattered to any 

 man whether the sky were clear or cloudy, so 

 long as his armour did not get too hot in the 

 sun! 



The woods and forests, we recollect, filled 

 the mediaeval mind with fear. They were the 

 abodes of evil spirits. To Dante it was a 

 dreadful thing to be lost in una selva selvaggia, 

 a wild wood. Mr. Briton Riviere has painted 

 a picture of a knight who, riding into the 

 forest gloom, where owls peep out from holes 

 in the trees, where bats fly about blindly, and 



