Under the Greenwood Tree – an exhibition worth travelling for

A mixed exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints devoted to the subject of the tree might sound an unexciting event, filled with what Johnny Cash memorably described as ‘hopeful stars of flickering magnitude’, but actually in this case the reverse is true. The show has been divided into two halves, the first of which deals with a historical survey of the tree in past art, the section which is herewith under review. The sequel, focusing on the tree in contemporary art, will be at the museum from 12 October – 23 November. Readers who have to travel any distance, and may thus be limited to a single visit, should choose with care which portion of the show they think they’d most like to see. The historical art currently on display is so well selected that those who live nearer may well be tempted back for further viewings.

The show in this resourceful little museum begins with a lovely etching by S.R. Badmin of a heavily pollarded old ash, hung above Samuel Palmer’s first etching (rather low on the wall for me), ‘Willow’. At once a standard of quiet excellence is established, which is maintained throughout the display. A watercolour of Richmond Park presents another side of John Martin from the eschatological prophet of thunderbolts and lightning enjoyed by so many of us, while a large Ivon Hitchens oil, ‘Oak Tree in Purple Woods’, suggests a very different way of evoking woodland — through emotional colour, gesture and interval. Although I felt there was possibly too much 19th-century work (I could have done without Frank Richards’s ‘Cornish Orchard’, though it will probably be popular with visitors), it was oddly rewarding to be introduced to the extraordinary and rather hallucinatory ‘Oak, Holly and other Trees’ by Albert Durer Lucas, and such lesser-knowns as Heywood Sumner.

One of the finest things in the first room is Paul Nash’s ‘Landscape of the Malvern Distance’ (1943), a magnificent oil of trees articulating the landscape, composing it and framing it, in effect populating it.