TREES IN MODERN PAINTING 291 



ing is enough, perhaps, to show that this is a 

 too narrow point of view, determined by pre- 

 occupation with other ends of art. Atmo- 

 spheric changes have much, if not most, to do 

 with what we call the moods of nature, which 

 often are, indeed, moods of nature, and are of 

 no less importance to us if they be only reflec- 

 tions of our own moods ; and the French 

 impressionist landscape painters have given an 

 individual and intense interpretation of these 

 moods, and have taught some of our younger 

 painters to see and feel and paint as they have 

 done. 



When changes of light and colour become 

 the real subject of a picture, it is evident that 

 one scene may serve for a whole series of 

 pictures. Thus Claude Monet made two hay- 

 stacks in a neighbour's field the subject of no 

 fewer than twenty paintings; and a line of 

 poplars along the river Epte at Giverny 

 served him for another series. The reader 

 will recollect that Evelyn, journeying along the 

 river Po, noted the poplars on its banks ; but 

 he did not watch them through the changing 

 hours of the day as Monet watched the poplars 

 by the side of his French river. Monet watched 



