Leaf by Niggle

Niggle and Mr. Parish begin the story at odds with one another; by the end, they are steadfast friends with a better appreciation of each other. Niggle is considered more “unique” and “silly” for his artistry, while Mr. Parish, who prefers gardening, is more practical and does not see all the fuss Niggle made about a bunch of “grey patches and black lines” (91). The differences between them illustrate a tension between a person’s practical side (represented by Mr. Parish) and the creative side (represented by Niggle). Individuals who naturally leaned toward a more practical mindset may struggle to see value in creativity, as is the case with Mr. Parish and Niggle. Mr. Parish does not see any purpose in all the time Niggle devotes to his art. Yet, in the end, Mr. Parish is astonished that Niggle’s masterpiece has come to life in the field. Though Mr. Parish points out that Niggle ought to have told him about his cleverness, the Shepherd points out, “He tried to tell you long ago […] but you would not look. He had only got canvas and paint in those days, and you wanted to mend your roof with them” (109). This pointed remark provides commentary on the ways people, oblivious to their own biases and selfish motives, often overlook the importance of creativity in their lives.

Conversely, Niggle’s long journey teaches him that he might have erred in writing Mr. Parish off and never giving him a chance to admire his art. He admits that he never showed Mr. Parish his work and that Mr. Parish had a hand in the creation of the Tree as well. When Niggle first arrives at the countryside, he says, “What I need is Parish. There are lots of things about earth, plants, and trees that he knows and I don’t. This place cannot be left as my private park. I need help and advice; I ought to have got it sooner” (105). Niggle’s admission that he needs Mr. Parish’s advice and illustrates that creativity needs practicality. In this story, too much creativity means nothing ever gets done on time, as we see through Niggle, who never finishes his painting and so isn’t prepared to embark on his journey. However, too much practicality leaves a person with a dull life and no appreciation for art or beauty, as seen through Mr. Parish.

Though Niggle and Mr. Parish initially inhabit opposite ends of the creativity-practicality spectrum, they eventually meet in the middle. This is made clear through the friendship that forms once they learn to value each other’s perspective—a friendship that is immortalized in the landscape’s name, Niggle’s Parish. This shift from interpersonal discord to harmony founded on mutual respect and understanding emphasizes the importance of both traits and frames them as complementary, not necessarily opposing, values.

Closely related to the story’s consideration of practicality and creativity is its defense of nature and art. Many people do not value Niggle’s work. The House Inspector tells Niggle he ought to have used the canvas to fix people’s houses instead of painting a picture on it. Mr. Parish and Mrs. Parish refer to Niggle’s painting as “daubing,” implying it is clumsy and haphazard. At the end, Tompkins states, “[Niggle] could not have designed a telling poster to save his life. Always fiddling with leaves and flowers. I asked him why, once. He said he thought they were pretty? Can you believe it?” (110). Tompkins’s remark seems all the more crass in the context of the remarkable journey Niggle and Mr. Parish have just taken together—one in which Niggle’s painting comes to life in the landscape around them. Though it is true that Niggle sometimes neglected his other responsibilities for the sake of his artwork, those responsibilities were to other people rather than the abstract idea of utility Tompkins here endorses.

The story thus defends beauty for the sake of beauty—what Tompkins sneeringly refers to as “prettiness”—but it also suggests that even art that seems “useless” may have a deeper purpose. After leaving the workhouse, Niggle arrives in an idyllic land apparently based on his painting. However, where Niggle could never quite capture his imagined scene on canvas, he now finds it perfected beyond his wildest dreams:

All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time. […] Some of the most beautiful—and the most characteristic, the most perfect examples of the Niggle style—were seen to have been produced in collaboration with Mr. Parish: there was no other way of putting it (104).

Assuming Niggle is now in some sort of afterlife, the implication is that his painting was an echo of a deeper spiritual reality, making art a guidepost to the divine. It’s notable too that Niggle now recognizes the tree as a collaborative effort: The reality that art points to does not simply involve beauty but also goodwill and friendship (in Christian terms, love for one’s neighbor). This is why Atkins questions “what [Tompkins] mean[s] by use” when Tompkins dismisses Niggle’s painting (110). The story suggests that much of art’s utility is spiritual rather than material.    

It is also significant that Niggle’s painting is inspired by nature, which several characters likewise dismiss as useless. At the time “Leaf by Niggle” was written, the environmental impacts of the industrial revolution were just starting to emerge. Western society increasingly treated nature as valuable only to the extent that it served people’s economic interests, resulting in the logging of entire forests in the name of progress. Niggle’s attention to the details of his Tree asks the reader to pause and recognize the beauty of nature so that they do not end up like Mr. Parish, who only realizes the beauty of nature after making his “long journey” to the afterlife. Like aesthetic beauty, the story suggests, natural beauty provides glimpses of the divine.