228 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



continues Redgrave, ''to say what his trees 

 really are, and to point out in his landscapes 

 the distinctive differences between oak and 

 beech, and elm." Redgrave does not regard 

 this as a defect, saying that Gainsborough 

 ''gave us more of Nature than any merely 

 imitative rendering could do ". 



Here, once more, we are on the ever diffi- 

 cult ground of the relation of art to nature. 

 Hamerton notes that there is no niggling, there 

 are no mere spotty touches in Gainsborough's 

 foliage, and says that "though Gainsborough 

 was not a botanical landscape painter he had a 

 profound sense of sylvan beauty and majesty ". 

 Ruskin's verdict on Gainsborough's landscapes 

 is "that they are rather motives of feeling and 

 colour than earnest studies ; that their execution 

 is in some degree mannered, and always hasty ; 

 that they are altogether wanting in affectionate 

 detail, and that their colour is in some measure 

 dependent on a bituminous brown and con- 

 ventional green, which have more of science 

 than of truth in them ". 



These characteristics are indiscriminately 

 labelled faults. At the worst they are no more 

 than limitations ; and Gainsborough's wooded 



