TREES IN MODERN PAINTING 231 



of summer for the brown tints of sun-dried 

 autumn. Was not England above all things 

 green? Was it not so distinguished from 

 other lands? So he thought, and so he ever 

 painted." 



Hamerton perplexingly says that '*the only 

 landscape painter who ever dedicated his powers 

 to this season of the year [spring] with a devo- 

 tion all but exclusive of every other was Con- 

 stable ". ■ It is truer to say that he devoted 

 himself to spring and summer, to the almost 

 absolute exclusion of autumn. In his most 

 famous pictures the trees are in full leaf Such, 

 for instance, are "The Hay Wain," the very 

 title of which fixes the time of the year ; and 

 when we look closely, we find that the elder 

 tree is in flower. "The Cornfield" bespeaks 

 a still later season. It was the green time of 

 the year, and not either spring or summer 

 alone, to which he devoted himself; though, 

 undoubtedly, he especially loved the freshness 

 of spring-time, and delighted in the sparkle of 

 the sunlight on the leafage when it had been 

 drenched by a passing shower. 



In Modern Painters, Ruskin, one cannot but 

 think, unduly depreciates Constable, dwelling 



