TREES IN PAINTING 219 



the foreground of the '* Bacchus and Ariadne," 

 while noting that there is given nothing '* be- 

 yond the simple forms and hues of the flowers, 

 even those hues themselves being simplified 

 and broadly rendered ". He ranks Titian with 

 Correggio and Giorgione as having accom- 

 plished the difficult task of rightly painting 

 a leaf, though it put him to ** thoughtful 

 trouble". But " Titian's distant branches," he 

 says, ''are ponderous flakes as if covered with 

 sea-weed, while Veronese's and Raphael's are 

 conventional, being exquisitely ornamental ar- 

 rangements of small perfect leaves". 



Titian's trees tell much of their life's story. 

 We can see how they have been affected by 

 the nature of their situation ; broken boughs 

 declare the losses they have had ; new shoots 

 tell of the efforts they have made to recoup 

 themselves. Was Titian's observation of trees 

 quickened by the fact that his brother Fran- 

 cesco was a timber merchant ? As the two 

 walked together in the woods, the severely 

 utilitarian comments of the man of business may 

 have led to a scrutiny of the trees by the artist, 

 with results in his case other than calculation of 

 the value of the timber to be obtained from 



