To paint a tree successfully, it is necessary to produce not merely shape and colour but the vitality and "soul" of the original.
Until with the last two or three centuries, nature itself was always appealed to as the one source of true inspiration; then came the artist of the studio, since which time Chinese art has languished, while Japanese art, learned at the feet of Chinese artists from the fourteenth century onwards, has come into prominent notice, and is now, with extraordinary versatility, attempting to assimilate the ideals of the West.
The following words were written by a Chinese painter of the fifth century:-- "To gaze upon the clouds of autumn, a soaring exaltation in the soul; to feel the spring breeze stirring wild exultant thoughts;--what is there in the possession of gold and gems to compare with delights like these?
And then, to unroll the portfolio and spread the silk, and to transfer to it the glories of flood and fell, the green forest, the blowing winds, the white water of the rushing cascade, as with a turn of the hand a divine influence descends upon the scene.

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These are the joys of painting." Just as in poetry, so in pictorial art, the artist avoids giving full expression to his theme, and leaving nothing for the spectator to supply by his own imaginative powers.