The other day I checked Etsy, one of the Internet's most popular arts and crafts websites, using the search term 'tree'. Results? Over 40,000 objects of art related to or using images of trees.So why do we all like trees so much?
There are expected answers of course. Nature is a beautiful thing and a tree is one of the worlds largest organisms. They create oxygen. Some scientists say they produce chemicals that make us feel good and enhance our immune system. And they look great summer, winter and fall.
But actually it's much more than that. When you take people and place them in an FMRI machine (neuroscientists call it 'going into the magnet') and show them images of trees, their brains light up far out of proportion with other nature images. Our brains are clearly highly aroused by tree imagery.
When you do a little more research you find that certain kinds of trees work better too. The tree shown in my painting "Tree of Wonder" is the tree type that test subjects find the most pleasing; a large lone spreading tree in the midst of a savanna or field. Very much like the kind of landscape you would expect to see in arid Africa, the birth place of humans. Protection from a storm or the noonday sun and a place to crawl up in the event of danger.
