Trees have always held a great fascination for people - without trees there would be no fire, no heat, no dwellings, no oxygen. Human life would be impossible to imagine... Artists have often identified with trees, with their strength, their magic, their individuality, the powerful principle of life preservation that they express. The Magic of Trees is dedicated to the tree and the way it appears in art with ist physiognomy, its gestures, its beauty, its aura and its vulnerability. The books presents a selection of important classical modernist and contemporary artists who have interpreted the trees as formal, natural or symbolic phenomenon, who have "mastered" the tree or used it to speak through. These different languages and voices between hymn and memento come to life impressively in paintings and sculptures Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst, Joseph Beuys, Georg Baselitz, Wolfgang Laib and Giuseppe Penone, and in works by artists from Africa and the Pacific. (German edition available ISBN 3-7757-0803-0, English edition available ISBN 3-7757-0798- 0)