The Flower and the Leaf

John William North 1842 - 1924

Summary

Idyllic landscape scene of a lush meadow surrounded by dense woodland, with a small group of tangled trees and undergrowth in the foreground to the left, inside which hides a female figure. A second woman in white walks in the middle distance to the right of the picture. The title is taken from a Middle English poem, 'The Floure and the Leafe', once attributed to Chaucer, of which part of the moral is that leaves have a more enduring beauty than flowers.