266 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



enter into the spirit of Gothic architecture as 

 could Turner, and in hardly a less degree, 

 Cotman ; nor, although he is more attentive 

 to the architecture of trees than is Cox, does 

 he ever make us feel that the strenuous life of 

 the individual tree, and the characteristics of 

 its growth, had any particular interest for him. 

 We may say, as Ruskin said about Cox's tree- 

 drawing, that we should be sorry to have De 

 Wint's trees other than they are. We should 

 not then get his broad harmonies of rich 

 colour, and his exhilarating prospects over vast 

 reaches of country in which the trees, collec- 

 tively, count for so much. 



It is no part of my purpose to attempt to 

 show, even briefly, how all of even the prin- 

 cipal English landscape painters have inter- 

 preted tree-life. If we went conscientiously 

 through a list of the men of the early and 

 middle periods of English art, we should find 

 ourselves going over much the same ground 

 as that over which a few of our greatest 

 painters have already taken us. We should 

 link W. J. Muller with Constable, find re- 

 semblances between Patrick and Alexander 

 Nasmyth and the Norwich School, and so 



