TREES IN MODERN PAINTING 261 



capricious waywardness of its own ; and yet 

 that even the waywardness is under control. 

 Stems and branches that gleam in the sunlight 

 are opposed to masses of shade behind them 

 in a way that brings out their structure with 

 startling vividness. At other times we have 

 simply masses of foliage, too dense for stem 

 and branch to be seen, yet we feel that we 

 could push our way through them. The sense 

 of design does not reduce wild nature to bond- 

 age, and the various kinds of trees retain their 

 individuality and habits of growth. 



Cotman had a truer feeling than Turner for 

 the character of the Scots pine, and contrasts 

 the towering self-reliant look of it with the 

 gracefulness of the silver birch, which, how- 

 ever, as we have seen, possesses an endurance 

 that its appearance does not suggest. His 

 oak-trees have enormous strength of bole, and 

 sturdiness of tortuous bough ; and the deeply 

 indented character of the leaves is suggested 

 in the edges and interior markings of the 

 leaf-masses. The gracefulness of the ash, the 

 rounded masses of beech and elm, the many 

 branchings and the narrow, pointed leafage of 

 the willow, are all sympathetically rendered. 



