The Blasted Tree: A Visual Metaphor

 

On a recent walk through the woods I saw that a large tree had two of its limbs shattered, possibly by a lightning strike. The breaks looked violent, with jagged edges, and an aggressive split. It's startling to see this damage amidst calm, leafy trees. And yet, it's a part of nature's cycle of destruction, decay, and regrowth. I wrote about this pattern here. Seeing this tree made me think of all the images of blasted trees in landscape paintings, and their meaning within those landscapes. 

Jacob van Ruysdael, Landscape with a Half-timbered House and a Blasted Tree, 1653

In her essay on Romantic landscape painting in Hyperallergic, Allison Meier writes:

What's important is that the tree is usually still living, leaves clinging to its battered branches. To the Romantics, it represented the cycle of nature, from death to life, all at once. 

Thomas Hearne, Blasted Tree Near a Lake, 1803

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, (1818), Victor Frankenstein describes himself as a blasted tree:

But I am a blasted tree: the bolt has entered my soul, and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be – a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity,  pitiable to others, and intolerable to myself. 

William Blake, Blasted Trees and Flattened Crops, 1821

The idea of the blasted tree has great emotional weight. In Blake's wood engraving the tree is so much like a storm-tossed human figure, bent by the wind, with a few leaves clinging to its outstretched arms. 

Frederic Church, Storm in the Mountains, 1847

A solitary tree, its trunk split and broken, stands high above a turbulent landscape. It is as though Church is pointing to pride and resilience in the face of turmoil. 

Jasper Cropsey, Blasted Tree, 1850

Like in the Church painting, Cropsey situates his damaged tree high up on a precipice, overlooking a dark, foreboding landscape. This painting feels despondent to me, the blasted tree crushed, the light in the sky nearly obliterated. 

Lawren Harris, North Shore, Lake Superior, 1926 

In this painting––the only one I could find on this theme from the 20th century––Harris presents a more optimistic vision of a solitary damaged tree. The tall, central tree is bathed in light; its curving forms reach skyward, an evocation of positive striving. In the history of the arts, our relationship with nature has provided many metaphors, including this one of the blasted tree. Simon Schama wrote a brilliant book, Landscape and Memory, on the various myths and strong cultural connections that we have to the different landscapes surrounding us. In his introduction he wrote:

...the various ecosystems that sustain life on the planet proceed independently of human agency...But it is also true that it is difficult to think of a single such natural system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture...And it is this irreversibly modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature we have.

The Magic of Sunset and Mists

It was serendipity that got me out of my indoor cocoon last evening and gave me the gift of a beautiful sunset. I was watching the remarkably beautiful, moving, and tragic film by Ettore Scola, A Special Day. Taking an intermission to get some fruit and see if Blinky the cat was back from his evening rambles, I stepped out on the porch to let him in and gasped at the color suffusing the landscape. Mists rising after an afternoon rain created layered veils of distant trees, turning the views into visual poetry. I got my camera, put on my gardening shoes and wandered outdoors until the light faded from the sky. Above is a view of my vegetable garden, facing west; it was my first shot, taken at 8:04 PM.

My favorite old apple tree had a strong presence silhouetted against the misted background trees. As I was photographing, I knew that these images couldn't come close to the experience of being in the landscape: they simplify in lights and darks; the richness of color in the foreground is flattened into dark drama; the soft haze of distance is partly lost. The air, the scents, the sounds are gone; the translation of a three dimensional world into two dimensions leaves out so much, but I wanted to try to record this nonetheless.
(I recommend clicking the images to enlarge them so as to see more detail.)

Coming closer to that apple tree a few minutes later, the emerging leaves were tinged with the sunset's glow.

Still facing west, a large crabapple tree against the brilliant sky.

The same tree a little later, with the ever changing clouds.

From the backyard I looked towards the east, where distant trees faded into pink haze.

This last shot was taken at 8:17 as the sky began to darken but color remained in the clouds. The telephone pole is holding up the world as wires cross the sky. In a brief quarter hour I was in an earthly heaven.

An Early-Spring Surprise: The Beauty of Freezing Rain

March is a flighty month, unable to settle on any one season or type of weather. After several lovely spring-like days, it turned wintry again. Temperatures in the 20s feel a great deal colder in March than they do in January. Sometimes unwanted weather can bring with it a gift, as did this morning's freezing rain: it encased branches and twigs and grasses in ice.....

....making a softly glittering landscape.

Branches were outlined in light, and rocks had thin coverings of snow and ice.

Each red line of the Burning Bush was emphasized by white.

It was poignant to see the swelling buds of lilac in their icy covering.

Sparkling ice made jewels of dried hydrangea....

....and goldenrod....

....and asters. The weather will warm again tomorrow, so I will be back in the orchard pruning apple trees, and in the vegetable garden laying out rows for planting. But there will likely be more winter events before spring settles in for good.

Ah, Winter!

Winter has finally arrived after weeks of worryingly warm weather. Although there were some cold days and some winter phenomena––such as the rime ice I wrote about and photographed here on December 6––most days were milder than normal. The New York Times published an article on December 30 titled "Climate Chaos, Across The Map", detailing anomalous weather across the globe. So it was a relief to have cold and snow and sleet. And to see the beauty that is reserved for winter with white ground and laden trees within a neutral landscape, as seen above on the last morning of 2015.

There were continuous soft snow flurries on the first day of the new year. I love winter days like that, with the snow adding some brightness, and deepening the quiet. A day of light snow, watching the flakes fall, is a soothing one.

Quirky small events happen during winter's cold, such as oddly shaped icicles....

....and branches encased in sparkling packages....

....and conifer needles delicately enhanced by icy caps.

A tiny brook in the woods runs a rich black between white banks.

Sometimes geometries appear, such as a dark icy circle surrounded by snow.

 There are poignant details, such as tiny seeds scattered alongside the deep footprint of a deer....

....and fine lines of grasses barely marking the expanse of white. I love the hiatus of winter, the suspension of the growing season; it makes spring all the more precious. Winter can be a difficult season, but I would hate to be without it.

A Magical White World

I awoke in the dark this morning. Opening the door to let the cat out, I noticed that the ground was white, but not with snow. As the day brightened, the landscape became a dazzling sight: fog's moisture had deposited icy crystals on trees and shrubs and grasses, creating rime ice. The combination of the crystalline branches with the soft fog was very beautiful. 

Grasses were outlined in white, and a tree looked like a soft cloud.

As the sun began to peek through the fog, its glow made the ice glitter.

The delicate white-coated dried ferns are wonderfully contrasted with the circular pattern of green lichen.

Looking closely at the ice, we can see its spiky crystals, changing the character of a rounded dried flower.

Even the spider silk attached to this seed head is covered with rime ice....

....and hydrangea petals have a decorative edge.

A few hours later, at 11:30 AM, the frost has melted from the ground, but remains on shrubs and tall grasses, looking like a mad mix of seasons. Winter has its trials, but only winter can us bring such unusual beauty.

The Transitions of November

On Sunday we turned the clocks back, making us even more aware of the changing light as we move towards winter. The sun is lower in the sky, the days are shorter, and something I am very aware of as I look out my east facing windows at dawn: the sun is rising farther in the south as its arc in the sky lessens, and we move closer to the winter solstice.

The sunflowers have dried, but I've left them in the garden for the chickadees, who love their seeds.

In the orchard, one tree of winter apples is still festooned with fruit, though all the leaves are gone.

The Burning Bush has turned from leafy crimson to scarlet berries.

Grasses and perennials have a quiet beauty, very different from the vivid colors of summer.

In the woods, drying grasses are pale green against the warmer hues of fallen leaves, once bright but now dun.

The grays of November can be very beautiful in their subtle variations, which look softer at this time of year; once snow is on the ground, the contrasts of tree and field become more intense.

Although October's brilliant maple foliage is gone, there is still color in the woods: the golds and rusts of beeches glow in the duller light. When I drove to NYC last week, there were also the rich colors of oaks, which grow closer to the Connecticut river, but not near my home.

And, there are the tamaracks, a deciduous conifer, growing here and farther north, adding their color to the remaining dark evergreens. There is much visual pleasure during this month of change, before the world becomes white with snow.

Some Fall Color

Every season has its pleasures, but fall in the northeast is a visual marvel. When the chlorophyll which keeps leaves green departs, it leaves behind the yellows, oranges, reds, and purples of carotenoids and anthocyanins. Go to this website for an explanation of the fall color change. In this part of the world, we think mainly of sugar maples, with their brilliant oranges and reds, as emblematic of fall; and looking at the colors above, there's a lot to learn about color mixing from Ma Nature.

But there are many other plants that have beautiful color changes in fall, such as the golden red-spiny seeds of the beech tree.

There are the seed heads of perennials that sometimes show delicate, lovely color, such as the spire of the Cimicifuga racemosa.

The Miss Kim lilac has another season of interest, with its leaves turning to a deep purplish burgundy red.

And the Euonymus alatus has leaves that become fiery crimson, hence its common name "Burning Bush".

In the yellow range are the milkweeds, a bright greenish yellow against the darker grasses.

The ferns beside the pond are now golden and rich rust colors.

There are still some apples hanging in the trees, orbs of color amid still-dark leaves.

But ah! the maples, flaming at their edges, are still the stars of the show. The color is not yet at its peak; in another week or so there will be more red and orange in the landscape.

Right now the hills are brushed with red. The reds will spread a bit and then, as leaves fall, only the dark greens of conifers remain, with the grays of the deciduous trees; winter will add whites. How I missed the seasons when I taught in California for three years! life is so much more interesting with their changes.