AND ANOTHER THING
An autumn leaf is a technicolour version of a human life in decay
PAUL JOHNSON
Frustrated by the rain, I spent much of the weekend collecting spectacular autumn leaves and painting them in my studio. These chromatic explosions of nature are even more remarkable when closely inspected than when seen in a mass on the tree. Shel- ley compared them to 'pestilence-stricken multitudes', their colours 'yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red'. I see them rather as images of smouldering fires in which metallic tints can be discerned. They betray continuous movement as the colours erupt and spread. Among leaves from the same tree, I studied one on which a bright maroon had occupied half the surface area, having driven the scarlet, which had already dispos- sessed a chrome yellow, into narrow corners close to the stem. Another was entirely maroon, turning darker and darker shades until parts of it were almost black. A third was still emerald green, with just a few red patches at the fringes. A fourth was com- pletely yellow except for scattered red spots turning into brown and, in a fifth, yellow and green were battling fiercely. And, of course, in a turning leaf a battle for life is going on, as age, represented by the darker, stronger colours, takes over, speeding up the veins which in some leaves are sickly white against the surrounding green, in others dark-red as though blood-clotted. The overall splendour of the effect is such that no painter can reproduce it, but maybe Shelley was right to see autumn as a disease which scourges and strips the tree of unwanted matter.
Leaves are like human hands, which serve the tree by gathering moisture and sunlight needed for its growth. The number of veins, the quantity and size of the cells some of which are specially constructed to store water and are complemented by salt- glands — vary according to the climate, altitude and latitude of the tree. The leaf develops all kinds of adaptive features to prevent water-loss, multiplying its veins, increasing the thickness of its cell walls, making its epidermis thick and hairy, and covering it with a cuticle and wax. These features are reversed in very moist places, and everything becomes thinner, just as we cast off clothing when it is hot and sticky. The leaf is the front line in each tree's bat- tle for survival, which is much more desper- ate with trees of its own species on the same site than with other kinds of tree — the civil wars of trees show less mercy than their wars of aggression. So the march of autumn across a leaf shows the deliberate destruction of an infinitely complex defen- sive system that has grown obsolete and must be replaced. Each leaf is a campaign map, a blueprint of a weapon, and in autumn a schematic reflection, in its garish colours, of bureaucratic trench warfare in an arboreal Pentagon.
As we become older, we turn into autumn leaves ourselves. But, for us, aging has none of the redeeming features of the leaf's sunset beauty, being merely a greying process in which all colour is washed out, the skin becomes anaemic and etiolated, and blotch- es, when they occur, are not frantic sunspots, as on leaves, but dark and ugly symptoms of danger. Trees are so close to us in so many ways. I wish we knew more about them. When I was doing basic training in the Army, our platoon sergeant, teaching us fire- orders, would say, 'When giving a fire-order remember there are two kinds of trees: fir trees and bushy-topped trees.' He would glare around defensively. 'Now I know that in point of scientific fact there are actually five kinds of trees, but for the Army's pur- pose there are only two.' My fellow recruit, a classics scholar, whispered, 'Even the ancient Greeks listed over 300 species of trees.'
I love learning about trees, but the experts make it so dull. According to them, what the sergeant should have said was, `There are three kinds of trees, pterido- phytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms.' (Each category contains 140, 500 and over 250,000 species respectively.) Dendrologists use terms such as apical meristems, the fusiform initials of vascular cambium, and they speak of xylem instead of wood. Behind this defensive verbiage they conceal interesting facts such as that one specimen of banyan tree in India has a branch cir- cumference of 600 metres and can shelter 20,000 people from the sun, or that the tal- ipot palm of Asia lives three quarters of a century before it suddenly flowers and fruits — just once — then dies.
Although I do not know much about trees, I am always looking at them, observ- ing them closely, noticing things. For instance, tree-trunks expand or contract in size according to the weather and the amount of water they contain. They shrink on a hot summer day because of water lost from the leaves by transpiration, then swell again during the night as water surges up from the soil. Trees are always changing over time, by their own or human agency or the attrition of the weather. My drawings, which go back 20 years in some cases, record these events. For instance, I have a big and careful drawing of the huge horse chestnut trees near the Queensway Gate entrance of Kensington Gardens — I call them the Big Five. I did this drawing before the rangers came along and lopped off most of the lower branches, spoiling their shape. So it is, in its way, a historical record. In the Quantocks, I have discovered a number of elderly beech trees of such contorted shapes and fantastical branch patterns as to constitute natural prodigies. One in particular, which I called the Old Witch, exceeded even the wildest dreams of the frenzied Gothic artists who worked in Disney's studio when he was preparing the terrifying sequence of Snow White fleeing through the forest. I drew this fearsome monster down to its smallest twig, and very glad I am that I did so, for a few weeks later the Forestry Commission destroyed it utterly, leaving only a heap of ash. Beeches, indeed, are my favourite trees. The higher the altitude, the more they develop human characteristics and the propensity to cling on to the soil with gnarled and knobbly sur- face roots, like ogre's hands, which stretch out from the trunk and dig bony fingers into the earth. Oh, they are lovely to draw! I once spent some time painting the fall in America, both in upper New York State, where the reds are the great feature, and in the Colorado Rockies, which spe- cialise in golden yellow. I completed an entire sketchbook of these tree-studies, probably the best things I have ever paint- ed in my life. I was so pleased and proud of this work that, on the way home, flying across the Atlantic, I put this sketchbook in the pocket of the seat in front of me, so that I could take it out from time to time and gloat over my haul. Alas, alas, God punishes pride. In the flurry of landing at Heathrow, I left the sketchbook in the seat pocket and, by the time I reported my loss, the cleaning ladies had swept all away and my precious paintings were in the inciner- ator, as ashy as the Old Witch or the manuscript of Carlyle's The French Revolu- tion in John Stuart Mill's fire grate. I have never regretted a loss more. But I am painting leaves industriously and each, in its way, is a microcosm of the grandest fall in history.
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