TREES IN PAINTING 221 



who have come after him, was in the quiet 

 elegance of his taste, which is conspicuous in 

 nothing so much as in the arrangement of his 

 sylvan compositions. He was not so vigorous 

 a realist as Diirer, nor so strong a draughtsman 

 as Titian, but in a certain aptitude for seizing 

 upon the more refined suggestions of Nature 

 he was, so far as sylvan subjects are concerned, 

 incomparably superior to both. His massive 

 and full-foliaged trees express sylvan richness 

 with a superb abundance, whilst the slender 

 trees whose trunks prettily cross each other 

 in lighter groupings are drawn with a rare 

 appreciation of their grace, and in both cases 

 equally the forms are controlled by an instinc- 

 tive love of beauty in composition." 



It is easy, of course, for a botanist to find 

 error after error in Claude's tree-drawing. 

 His touch is conventional and monotonous, 

 his drawing of stems and branches, and of 

 their ramification, is inaccurate — for one thing 

 he makes them taper throughout their length, 

 instead of diminishing their girth at the points 

 of subdivision. Only in the most general way 

 does he distinguish one kind of tree from 

 another ; and his trees are all so graceful and 



