Chestnut - Artistic References

Artistic References

• The jazz standard "April in Paris" begins, "April in Paris / Chestnuts in blossom." Almost certainly refers to Aesculus hippocastanum (the European Horse Chestnut)
• In the Polish film, Ashes and Diamonds, two characters reminisce about the chestnut trees that once lined a famous boulevard destroyed in the Warsaw Uprising. Another likely reference to Aesculus hippocastanum (the European Horse Chestnut), not Castanea sativa (Sweet Chestnut).
• "The Christmas Song" begins with the phrase "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." Nat King Cole's hit recording is now a Christmas standard.
• In the novel by E. M. Forster and later the film, Howards End, Mrs. Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) tells of her childhood home, where superstitious farmers would place pigs' teeth in the bark of the chestnut trees and then chew on this bark to ease toothaches.
• In the novel Jane Eyre, a chestnut tree outside Thornfield Hall is broken in two by lightning. This foreshadows the breakup of Rochester and Jane's engagement.
• The opening lines of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Village Blacksmith" are "Under a spreading chestnut-tree / the village smithy stands." This famous reference is much remarked upon by those involved in projects to return the American chestnut to the wild, although Longfellow's chestnut is well documented to have been Aesculus hippocastanum (the European Horse Chestnut).
• In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four the chestnut tree is used in poems recited throughout, referring to nature, modern life, and lies as in the saying: 'that old chestnut'.
• In Honore de Balzac's novel "Pere Goriot", it is stated by Vautrin that Eugène de Rastignac's family is living off of chestnuts; symbolism that is used to represent how impoverished Eugene's family is.