ees seen against the sky. These are very difficult to treat, and
almost every landscape painter has a different formula. The hard, fussy,
cut-out, photographic appearance of trees misses all their beauty and
sublimity.

There are three principal types of treatment that may serve as examples.
In the first place there are the trees of the early Italian painters,
three examples of which are illustrated on page 197 [Transcribers Note:
Diagram XXIII]. A thin tree is always selected, and a rhythmic pattern
of leaves against the sky painted. This treatment of a dark pattern on a
light ground is very useful as a contrast to the softer tones of flesh.
But the treatment is more often applied nowadays to a spray of foliage
in the foreground, the pattern of which gives a very rich effect. The
poplar trees in Millais' "Vale of Rest" are painted in much the same
manner as that employed by the Italians, and are exceptional among
modern tree paintings, the trees being treated as a pattern of leaves
against the sky. Millais has also got a raised quality of paint in his
darks very similar to that of Bellini and many early painters.

Giorgione added another tree to landscape art: the rich, full,
solidly-massed forms that occur in his "Concert Champetre" of the
Louvre, reproduced on page 151 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXIII]. In
this picture you may see both types of treatment. There are the
patterns of leaves variety on the left and the solidly-massed treatment
on the right.

[Illustration: Diagram XXIII.

EXAMPLES OF EARLY ITALIAN TREATMENT OF TREES

A. From pictures in Oratorio di S. Ansano. "Il trionfo dell' Amore,"
attributed to Botticelli.

B. From "L'Annunziazione," by Botticelli, Uffizi, Florence.

C. From "La Vergine," by Giovanni Bellini in the Accademia, Venice.]

Corot in his later work developed a treatment that has been largely
followed since. Looking at trees with a very wide focus, he ignored
individual leaves, and resolved them into masses of tone, here lost and
here found more sharply against the sky. The subordinate masses of
foliage within these main boundaries are treated in the same way,
resolved into masses of infinitely varying edges. This play, this
lost-and-foundness at his edges is one of the great distinguishing
charms of Corot's trees. When they have been painted from this mass
point of view, a suggestion of a few leaves here and a bough there may
be indicated, coming sharply against the sky, but you w