[Illustration: FIG. 40.]
[Illustration: FIG. 41.]
§ 10. The little ringed accumulation, repelled from the wood of the
larger trunk at the base of small boughs, may be seen at a glance in any
tree, and needs no illustration; but I give one from Salvator, Fig. 41
(from his own etching, _Democritus omnium Derisor_), which is
interesting, because it shows the swelling at the bases of insertion,
which yet, Salvator's eye not being quick enough to detect the law of
descent in the fibres, he, with his usual love of ugliness, fastens on
this swollen character, and exaggerates it into an appearance of
disease. The same bloated aspect may be seen in the example already
given from another etching, Vol. III., Plate 4, Fig. 8.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.]
§ 11. I do not give any more examples from Claude. We have had enough
already in Plate 4, Vol. III., which the reader should examine
carefully. If he will then look forward to Fig. 61 here, he will see how
Turner inserts branches, and with what certain and strange instinct of
fidelity he marks the wrinkled enlargement and sinuous eddies of the
wood rivers where they meet.
And remember always that Turner's greatness and rightness in all these
points successively depend on no scientific knowledge. He was entirely
ignorant of all the laws we have been developing. He had merely
accustomed himself to see impartially, intensely, and fearlessly.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.]
§ 12. It may, perhaps, be interesting to compare, with the rude
fallacies of Claude and Salvator, a little piece of earliest art,
wrought by men who could see and feel. The scroll, Fig. 42, is a portion
of that which surrounds the arch in San Zeno of Verona, above the
pillar engraved in the _Stones of Venice_, Plate 17, Vol. I. It is,
therefore, twelfth, or earliest thirteenth century work. Yet the foliage
is already full of spring and life; and in the part of the stem, which I
have given of its real size in Fig. 43, the reader will perhaps be
surprised to see at the junctions the laws of vegetation, which escaped
the sight of all the degenerate landscape-painters of Italy, expressed
by one of her simple architectural workmen six hundred years ago.
We now know enough, I think, of the internal conditions which regulate
tree-structure to enable us to investigate finally, the great laws of
branch and stem aspect. But they are very beautiful; and we will give
them a separate chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the note on Fig. 11, at page 17, which shows these two
directions in a shoot of lime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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