trees, van gogh, thomas cole, john singer sargeant, lord of the rings

on trees

(1) "Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background", Vincent Van Gogh

Exploring the natural world through art has been an enduring theme for artists across history and culture. Humanity has often attempted to define identity through relationship to nature. Literary, performing and visual artists have alluded to nature for as long as people have had the tools to express themselves. an appreciation of the natural world was key to establishing a sense of who we are as human beings, and an appreciation for the wonder and diversity of our surroundings. Painters such as those of the Hudson River School in the19^th century, revered nature, investigated the beauty of the natural world and examined the role that human beings play in it.

(2) Cover of the book published by Princeton University Press

The Hudson River School painters recorded a wilderness that, with the expansion of civilization due to developing industrialization in America, was being threatened long before what we now refer to as urban sprawl. Artists such as Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederic Edwin Church among many others, created images that reflect an almost spiritual awe of the vistas that were in danger of being lost to the needs of a growing population.

One aspect of this investigation has been an exploration of kinship with the tree. Trees have long evoked a wide range of responses: from embodiments of spirits or ethereal forces, to the extremely important roles played in ecological balance, and as a source of medicines.

The giant sequoia forests of the northern California coast still have some of the old growth preserved, despite the tragic decimation of those trees due to unchecked logging that has taken place over the past 200 years. The immensity of these amazing survivors, several hundred to thousands of years old, is visually stunning (my wife and I visited these trees recently). While walking amongst the giants, it is easy to feel that you have stumbled through a time warp and arrived in some primeval period before humans were ever a consideration in the landscape. Some of these trees grow almost 400 feet tall and can have diameters as wide as 40 feet. Though their sheer mass changes one's sense of proportion, there is also a strange tranquility that pervades the forest's floor. The occasional sounds of bird calls mingling with the distant breaking waves of the Pacific Ocean and the scurrying noises made under the fallen pine needles, are carried on hushed breezes between massive trunks and tiers of innumerable branches beneath a canopy of treetops.

An almost mystical sense that envelops the giant redwoods is reflected in mythic tales that have been handed down through the ages. Authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien brought these tales back to life, as seen in his account of giant tree folk called 'Ents' from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Interestingly the same concern for the disappearing natural landscape runs through Tolkien's depiction of these ancient guardians of the forest, as is seen in the motivation of the Hudson River School artists, among many others.

(3) An Ent from Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson

Divergent references to trees and mythology abound in literature and history. The pine tree has been referenced as a symbol of royalty in the description of the ancient Greek goddess Pitthea, as a symbol of fertility among worshippers of Bacchus, and as an object of worship of the spring equinox in Roman mythology. (4) Other types of trees have had their own magical associations as with the rowan from which the first woman was formed according to ancient Norse mythology.(5) Additionally, there are spiritual beliefs that proclaim certain trees as birth trees, denoting 39 different varieties for individual parts of the calendar year (6). The death of a fir tree on a property owner's land according to some Scandinavian beliefs, portends the death of that owner. (7) Among the Ainu in Japan, the willow tree is credited with forming the backbone of the first person as part of a belief that all people are the descendants of trees. The Dumuryia clan in India claim the fig tree to be their ancestral tree. Other cultures believe in a 'world tree' concept that has the spirit of the tree permeating all of life. (8) Trees of all kinds have a variety of associated mythic properties in cultures around the globe, which illustrates how much human beings are shaped by their perception of the nature.

(9) Hout - Andy Goldsworthy

In more recent times, artists such as Andy Goldsworthy enter natural landscapes and create outdoor installations inspired by site and ultimately nature itself. There is a poetry that perhaps does not address the sublime of the Hudson River School, but nonetheless evokes a speculative calm, a space in several ways antagonistic to the hustle and bustle of contemporary city life.

On an entirely personal note, I remember my own affinity with trees growing up, perhaps arising from the countless stories I read populated with wood sprites, nymphs and a variety of other inhabitants of enchanted forests. Of course, there was also the single, huge oak tree that grew on the block I lived on in Brooklyn, N.Y., that turned into a glorious yellow blaze of color every fall and attracted thousands of furry yellow caterpillars during the summer. The kids on my street used to line their pockets with them as a wondrous, albeit short-lived, fortune of sorts. I also recall another large tree that grew near the entrance to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens whose large root system seemed to grow out of the ground and snake around the base of the hill out from which it sprang. Those roots appeared to me to have magical properties and, if properly traversed, would act as a miraculous path (perhaps akin to the yellow brick road of Wizard of Oz fame), that would take me to faraway places.

In addition, my family took many day and weekend trips just north of the city, where we would roam through the pine forests that seemed to go on forever, welcoming us with swaying, dark green needle covered branches on each occasion. In my adult life (and present state of habitation, Minnesota), I also had occasion years ago to visit the 300 plus year old Witch's Tree on Lake Superior. Both French Canadian fur trappers and Native Americans of a bygone era would lay offerings at its base to secure safe passage as they paddled across that great expanse of water.

Suffice to say that in many beliefs about trees and their relationship with us, artists have also depicted elements of the landscape in innumerable ways, endowing their work with personified interpretations of natural terrain. In taking a look at the range of artistic expression, we get a glimmer of the promise and wonder that we also have the capacity to realize.

(10) "Better Than Spring", by Yang Ming-Yi

Image sources

(1) Vincent Van Gogh: The Paintings http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/p_0712.htm

(2) Princeton University Press - American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880 http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/7326.html

(3) Middle Earth Tours http://fan.theonering.net/middleearthtours/ents.html

(4) Mythology and Folklore of the Scots Pine http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/tfl.mythpine.html

(5) Trees for Life: Restoring the Caledonian Forest http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/tfl.mythrowan.html

(6) The Sacred Garden http://www.sacredgarden.org/trees.html

(7) Mystical World Wide Web - Tree Mythology Grid http://www.mystical-www.co.uk/treemyth.htm

(8) Diane Edgecomb - The Mythology of Trees http://www.livingmyth.com/about/trees_write.asp

(9) Hout - Andy Goldsworthy http://hout.uitdaging.org/boekenlijst/jpggr/houtandy.html

10) Yang-Mi Ying Paintings From Life http://www.chineseartnet.com/ymy/life2.htm