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| Achille Etna Michallon Study of a Tree before 1822 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| John William Inchbold A Study in March ca. 1855 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Hubert von Herkomer Woodland Scene with Rabbits ca. 1862 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot The Beech Tree ca. 1860-70 oil on canvas National Museum Cardiff, Wales |
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| Auguste Anastasi Avenue of Poplars at Bougival ca. 1865 oil on panel Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham |
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| William Henry Charlton Dead Branch ca. 1870-1910 oil on canvas Hatton Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne |
And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name
You can't say it that way any more.
Bothered about beauty you have to
Come out into the open, into a clearing,
And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you
Is OK. To demand more than this would be strange
Of you, you who have so many lovers,
People who look up to you and are willing
To do things for you, but you think
It's not right, that if they really knew you . . .
So much for self-analysis. Now,
About what to put in your poem-painting:
Flowers are always nice, particularly delphinium.
Names of boys you once knew and their sleds,
Skyrockets are good – do they still exist?
There are a lot of other things of the same quality
As those I've mentioned. Now one must
Find a few important words, and a lot of low-keyed,
Dull-sounding ones. She approached me
About buying her desk. Suddenly the street was
Bananas and the clangor of Japanese instruments.
Humdrum testaments were scattered around. His head
Locked into mine. We were a seesaw. Something
Ought to be written about how this affects
You when you write poetry:
The extreme austerity of an almost empty mind
Colliding with the lush, Rousseau-like foliage of its desire to communicate
Something between breaths, if only for the sake
Of others and their desire to understand you and desert you
For other centers of communication, so that understanding
May begin, and in doing so be undone.
– John Ashbery (1979)
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| Blandford Fletcher The Old Beech Tree 1910 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
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| William Bruce Ellis Ranken The Yellow Tree ca. 1910 oil on canvas Armagh County Museum, Northern Ireland |
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| Maurice de Vlaminck Road through Trees ca. 1900-1920 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
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| John Nash Gloucestershire Landscape 1914 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Gilbert Spencer Elm Trees at Garsington 1925 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Jacob Epstein Epping Forest ca. 1930 oil on paper Manchester Art Gallery |
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| Lucien Pissarro Olive Trees, Toulon 1931 oil on canvas National Museum Cardiff, Wales |
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| Charles Ginner Hampstead Heath, Spring 1932 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Adrian Allinson Farewell to Mallorca 1935 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |