TREES IN PAINTING 207 



corn, the vine and the laurel, used decoratively, 

 in scrolls, with birds perched on the branches, 

 and nests from which little open beaks peep 

 out. This is in the crypt of St. Januarius, in 

 the cemetery of Praetextatus ; and, in a frieze 

 below the scrolls, which run in a series of 

 bands, boys, gathering roses, represent Spring- 

 time ; cutting, gathering and threshing corn, 

 they stand for Summer ; in Autumn they gather 

 grapes ; in Winter they rear ladders against the 

 olive-trees, and gather the olives. 



Here again we have a frank expression of 

 joy in the beauty and fruitfulness of the earth, 

 and an attempt to communicate the feeling to 

 others. But it is not done in the way of the 

 modern landscape painter. The reader may 

 have been reminded, by the description just 

 given of the representation of the four seasons 

 by the artist of the Catacombs, of our following 

 the cycle of the year in an earlier chapter. But 

 we were concerned mainly with the look of 

 things, and of things regarded, not individually, 

 but together, not sky alone, cloudy or clear; 

 then trees alone ; then hills alone ; and so with 

 all other natural objects. The primitive artist 

 looked at these things separately. I do not 



