TREES IN MODERN PAINTING 241 



look in at his gallery I should recognise a scene 



I well knew, the features of which he had 



brought from the West. I did so, and traced, 



except in a part of the front-ground, a spot 



near Newbridge, on the Tamar, we had visited 



together." The picture then was painted in 



London, far away from the scene itself We 



feel no sense of reality ; it is too conventional 



in composition, in colour, and in light and 



shade, to produce such an impression. It is 



a painted world. Yet how marvellous are the 



gradations of tone by which, and not merely by 



diminished size alone, the eye passes through 



that world from distance to farther distance, 



until earth and sky mingle in a last uncertainty. 



Constable would have made us feel as if the 



scene were before us. Turner reminds us of 



it ; and idealises it as the memory idealises. 



The scene is in a well-wooded country. On 



the high ground to the left are two lofty trees, 



with long stems, branchless for the greater part 



of their height, and then branching out and 



bearing heads of exceedingly graceful foliage. 



What kind of trees are they? If we were to 



cut off the lower part of the stems we should 



probably think of the ash, and then say, 

 16 



