Autumnal leaves / by Francis George Heath ; with twelve coloured plates produced in facsimile from leaves collected and arranged by the author; four page and fourteen vignette wood illustrations of new forest scenery,
Year: 1885
Type: book
Abstract: Vll thing more of the loveliness which has stirred the enthiisiasm and excited the admiration of poets and-in a less degree-of jprosateurs.It is true, as one writer feelingly exclaims, that * Not Spring or Summer's beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnal face/ and it is worth an effort to endeavour to catch and stereotype, so to speak, some of the most pro- minent of the exquisitely beautiful, but transient, features of the season of Autumn.It is not, perhaps, generally known that transient as these features are in our woodlands -^for ' the autumnal forest,' as Gilpin truly says, ' is an instrument easily untuned ' by ' one frosty night or parching blast ' -^yet, as far as the rich and varied tints of autumnal leafage are concerned, they can be retained to charm the eye in port- folios : so that the poet's lament over the ' latest loveliest flowers ' which Autumn wreaths ' in many-coloured bowers,' * The rich luxuriance * * of every view, The mild and modest tint, the splendid hue, The temper'd harmony of various shades, Alas! whose beauty blooms at once and fades,' need not find an echo in the soul of the reader who will but take the trouble to seek for and Vlll PREFACE.preserve the coloured gems of the autumnal woods.Should this volume suggest to any of its readers the collection and preservation of autumnal leaves not merely as objects in themselves of great beauty, but as reminiscences of pleasant autumn rambles, it will, incidentally, it is hoped, serve a pleasant, if a minor, purpose : and if such a pastime should give to the reader half the pleasure the Author has experienced in wandering by autumn hedges and through autumn woods in search of the materials out of which he has wrought this volume, its perusal will, perhaps, in more than one way, be fruitful of good results. AUTUMNAL LEAVES.vigorous flowers whicb, coming with the early summer, attain their full splendour in July and August, and linger on into the first few days of September; but tlie veritable blossoms of Autumn which come with the season and remain open until cut down by the early frosts of winter.Yet these, beautiful as they are and conspicuous, in places, by their abundant presence, appear to be obliterated by the more pervading hues of autumnal leafage.Content, so to speak, to suffer by comparison, during the summer-whilst they are dressed in their garb of sober green-with the flowers which they bear and serve by contrast to bring into relief, the leaves, in the later season, change colour, and when their early ornaments are faded and gone, blossom, themselves, into tints of mellow beauty, and oftentimes into hues of splendour which enrich the landscape as far as the eye can see.Pencil and pallet have been industriously employed, since landscape art first commenced to copy J^ature, in the work of delineating on paper and canvas the especial, prominent, or typical obtained by the only absolutely exact method namely by the employment of photography.The artist who imdertook the work of filling in the details of venation performed his task with ad- mirable fidelity ; the lithographers coloured after
Author: Francis George Heath
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2484588907