Existing comment:
Trees
Considered the greatest ornament and noblest element of the landscape, the tree was also acknowledged as a fiercely complicated motif to paint. The diversity of arboreal size, shape, and color meant that no single ideal existed for artists to emulate. In an era that saw the introduction of a modern botanical classification system and the emergence of forest management as a profession, artists found themselves alongside scientists wandering in the woods. Both strove to understand these natural treasures through firsthand observation and sketching. In their oil studies, however, artists generally favored expressing the character of a species by conveying distinctive features in just a few lines or strokes. "Sufficient resemblance" was the goal, according to the writer of a treatise on depicting trees. "It is not necessary to become a perfect Botanist to delineate a leaf." |