254 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



the reader from going to him expecting more 

 than he has to give, while finding also much that 

 is at first perplexing, and, as a result, perhaps, 

 not learning how much he gives that is invalu- 

 able. Again and again one finds that this is 

 what happens. Even Ruskin had to admit 

 how much what was conventional in Turner's 

 art had interfered with appreciation of what 

 was true in it 



It might seem that nothing need be said about 

 the tree-painting of the minor contemporaries 

 of Constable and Turner, that what has been 

 said about the work of these two would suffice. 

 Or, at least : that the work of the others might 

 have been discussed first, and thus we should 

 have come to these two as to a climax. But 

 it is not always an anti-climax to listen to the 

 talk of simple people after hearing the dis- 

 quisitions of the learned ; and, similarly, I have 

 often found it delightful to pass from Turner's 

 stimulating, not to say exciting, art to the 

 simple, restful drawings of Cox and De Wint. 

 To these we are coming shortly, but will do so 

 by way of a painter who may be said to stand 

 part way between these two artists and Turner 

 — John Sell Cotman, who was born at Norwich 



