Twisted Sinews | The art of trees
‘The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way ... to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.’ William Blake
Mark Frith, The Major Oak
The British public’s horrified reaction to the sickening criminal felling last autumn of one of Britain’s best-loved natural landmarks – the famous sycamore near Once Brewed on Hadrian’s Wall – is testament to the country’s deep-seated love of trees.
John Ruskin, that great arbiter of 19th-century art philosophy – felt it to be ‘hopeless’ to depict ‘dark masses of laborious foliage’, but nevertheless trees have long been featured by the country’s foremost landscape painters, dating back to the days of JMW Turner and John Constable, and beyond.
Trees, of course, have had symbolic value since biblical times: think of the Tree of Life, the Tree of Forgiveness, and the Tree of Knowledge. Think of the folkloric connotations of the oak, and the yew.
Those complex proportions – all those branches, twigs and leaves – and the myriad colours and tones within each specimen, have long made trees an attractive subject for painters and draughtsmen to practice their craft and show off their technical ability. As well as Constable and Turner, think Thomas Gainsborough; think Edward Burne-Jones, think Edward Lear, think Emily Carr, think Ivon Hitchens.
Anthony Whishaw RA, Lyminge Forest
But trees have also been a conduit enabling artists to immerse themselves in a more spiritual dimension. For William Blake, trees epitomised imagination itself; for Samuel Palmer they were a metaphor for the human condition (he wrote about trying to capture 'the grasp and grapple of the roots; the muscular belly and shoulders; the twisted sinews.') For Paul Nash, trees symbolised the horrors of war, depicting charred, leafless trunks in paintings such as We Are Making a New World (1918, on permanent show in the Imperial War Museum) to convey his despair having witnessed mass slaughter on the Western Front.
We are making a new world, indeed. We are currently witnessing something of a tree-art boom, reflecting the current angst about the parlous state of trees in the age of Dutch elm disease and ash dieback; in the era of industrial deforestation and galloping climate change. Trees have become political, and painting them has become, in many cases, an act of activism.
Paul Hart, Alien, 2007
Institutions have been set up, to reflect this trend. ‘The Arborealists’ is group of prominent artists, including Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis, David Inshaw, Julian Perry, Christopher Bramham and Mark Frith who, since 2013, have arranged regular countrywide exhibitions (the next, The Quietness of Being: An Exploration of Trees through the Art of Benjamin Haughton and the Arborealists takes place in Portsmouth Museum from October 1 – May 2025).
In a similar vein, is the online ‘Tree Art Gallery’, founded by Emmeline Hallmark (formerly a Senior Director at Sotheby’s), which is currently showing a major exhibition at the Harley Foundation in Nottinghamshire (until July 14). This features graphite drawings by (Arborealist) Mark Frith, photographs by Paul Hart, paintings by Anthony Whishaw RA, and glass pieces by Effie Burns.
Frith’s work deserves singling out. In 2011, supported by the late publisher Felix Dennis, the artist set out to produce a series of huge, meticulously detailed graphite drawings of the ‘most important oak trees in Britain’, and ten of these remarkable ‘portraits’ are on show this summer. Included are the Great Oak at Nibley Green, a Frith childhood favourite, and the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, a short drive from the gallery (used as shelter, according to folklore, by Robin Hood and his Merry Men). Hallmark will be bringing works by Mark Frith and Paul Hart to British Art Fair 2024.
Annie-Rose Fiddian-Green, Fallen Oak, Pastel on Handmade paper, 2024, 60 x 70cm, image courtesy Brooke-Walder Gallery
Another current show worth mentioning in this vein is Breathing with Trees, at the Brooke-Walder Gallery’s new space in Duke Street, St James’s until July 14, featuring the work of young British artist Annie-Rose Fiddian-Green (Brooke Walder will be showing at British Art Fair 2024). Fiddian-Green’s swirling drawings represent what she terms ‘the enchantment of ever-changing earth’. There’s a skeletal element to her very living creations: each drawing – ranging in size from 10cm to 1.7 metres – is a silvan memento mori. Each drawing celebrates the life of trees, while foreshadowing their death: we might call the artist a constructive activist. Her fine touch proves that you can use art to make a powerful environmental statement without resorting to throwing paint over an old master’s work.
I’ll leave you with a quote by W.H. Auden, who would, no doubt, have approved of the current boom in the art of trees.
‘The trees encountered on a country stroll,
Reveal a lot about that country’s soul.
A culture is no better than its woods’.