250 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



pastoral. Everything in the country is not idyllic. 

 You may see young trees ; you may see trees in 

 the splendour of full maturity ; but you see also 

 trees that are passing to decay, one part still 

 full of leaf in summer, and, in winter, giving 

 evidence of life in its multitude of budded 

 twigs ; but another part of the same tree will 

 be but a gaunt, bare fork, and, finally, there is 

 the inevitable end This is how Turner saw 

 the trees ; his record is one of life and death. 



He did not, like Constable, confine himself 

 to any particular part of the year. Constable 

 revolted agfainst brown, and contented himself 

 with green. Turner revelled in colour, and 

 rejoiced in the wealth of it that autumn spread 

 before him, like a merchant displaying gorgeous 

 eastern fabrics. The colour he has given to 

 autumn foliage, purple and crimson and scarlet 

 and gold, is not the least of his many offences 

 in the eyes of those who have either never 

 observed nature in her most brilliant moments, 

 or will not accept the rhetorical statements of 

 exalted enthusiasm. 



Turner may also be said, as far as such a 

 thing can be said, to have exhausted the full 

 range of effects of light upon and through trees, 



