Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) felt a profound empathy with the natural environment, and considered the spiritual essence of trees to be comparable with that of human figures. This book traces Van Goghs development as a painter of trees in the natural landscape from his home province of North Brabant, through Paris to Provence.

'I perhaps owe it to flowers', wrote Claude Monet (1840-1926), 'that I became a painter.' One of the leading figures of the Impressionist movement and perhaps the most celebrated landscape painter of his age, Monet dedicated his life to capturing the subtleties of the natural world. Trees - willows enveloped in the eerie mists of the Seine, palm trees beneath the bright Mediterranean sun or poplars heavily laden with snow - became a significant motif in his work, and he used them to experimen...