Fondazione Hermann Hesse Montagnola
Trees
In Hesse's texts, there are many passages where he compares an individual human being with a tree. Many cultures have a tradition of anthropomorphic interpretations like this. In his famous poem In the Fog, he writes:
«No tree sees the other, each one is alone.»
Pictor lets himself be transformed into a tree in Pictor's Metamorphoses. Even in his last poem, The broken branch, Hesse uses this image for the human being.

In Montagnola, Hesse was inspired by the trees in the garden of Casa Camuzzi, by walks through the chestnut woods, and later, by the plants in his care in the Casa Rossa. Trees were for him living creatures, with a soul of their own, friends. In 1927, Hesse writes in Lamentation for an Old Tree:
«[…] when I look at the garden, it gives me – not only what it gives to the distracted or indifferent eye of any stranger, but infinitely more […] the leaves on each tree as well as its bloom and fruit is familiar to me in every stage of its becoming and dying, every one is my friend, of every one I know secrets known to me only. To lose one of these trees is for me, losing a friend.»

In the countryside around the museum, the visitor can still walk in chestnut woods, and see and feel what Hesse described in his texts on yew, beech, camellia, magnolia and others.
© Fondazione Hermann Hesse Montagnola