hat I
cannot be quite sure, the leaf not being flat enough at the base, that
this tree is meant for an aspen: but it is so in all probability; and,
whether it be or not, serves well enough to mark the definiteness and
symmetry of the old art,--a symmetry which, be it always observed, is
NEVER formal or unbroken. This tree, though it looks formal enough,
branches unequally at the top of the stem. But the lowest figure in
Plate 7, Vol. III. is a better example from the MS. Sloane, 1975, Brit.
Mus. Every plant in that herbarium is drawn with some approach to
accuracy, in leaf, root, and flower; while yet all are subjected to the
sternest conventional arrangement; colored in almost any way that
pleases the draughtsman, and set on quaint grounds of barred color, like
bearings on shields;[34] one side of the plant always balancing the
other, but never without some transgression or escape from the law of
likeness, as in the heads of the cyclamen flower, and several other
parts of this design. It might seem at first, that the root was more
carelessly drawn than the rest, and uglier in color; but this is in pure
conscientiousness. The workman knew that a root was ugly and
earthy; he would not make it ornamental and delicate. He would sacrifice
his pleasant colors and graceful lines at once for the radical fact; and
rather spoil his page than flatter a fibre.

[Illustration:
1. Ancient, or Giottesque. 4. Modern or Blottesque.
2. Purist. 5. Constablesque.
3. Turneresque. 6. Hardingesque.
27. The Aspen, under Idealization.]

[Illustration: 28. Aspen, Unidealized.]

Sec. 17. Here, then, we have the first mediaeval condition of art,
consisting in a fenced, but varied, symmetry; a perfect definiteness;
and a love of nature, more or less interfered with by conventionalism
and imperfect knowledge. Fig. 2 in Plate 27 represents the next
condition of mediaeval art, in which the effort at imitation is
contending with the conventional type. This aspen is from the MS.
Cotton, Augustus, A. 5, from which I have already taken an example of
rocks to compare with Leonardo's. There can be no doubt here about the
species of the tree intended, as throughout the MS. its illuminator has
carefully distinguished the oak, the willow, and the aspen; and this
example, though so small (it is engraved of the actual size), is very
characteristic of the aspen ramification;