DOI issue:
Studio-Talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0263
Studio-Talk
sky, rock, and water are American in character.
There is a boldness and tonality in Gagen’s treat-
ment of water which give distinction to his work.
He is an adept, too, in rendering stretches of the
glorious St. Lawrence River, with its emeraldine-
topaz tones of water, its great indigo-purple bluffs
—topped with green-russet downs, and weird
deposits of prehistoric lacustrine sands of ruddy
hue. Surf has been purchased by the Canadian
Government. Mr. A. M. Fleming’s The Moon and
the Fading Day, painted off the coast of Maine, also
revealed a master hand in the rendition of aqueous
glories of the eventide. Mr. Farquhar McG.
Knowles’s Evening Gloiv—capriciously so styled—
was of quite a different order. His good ship has
weathered fearsome gales and now lies at anchor
by the Quebec pier, her battered hull being the
painter’s looking-glass of the sun, reflecting the
westering orb of day. Mr. Knowles is a past-
master in ship-building and ship-sailing—he knows
every detail from keel to mast-head. He has
painted many admirable compositions of battleships
of to-day. One of Canada’s best marine painters,
Mr. W. M. Cutts, was not well represented : he and
his artist wife were away in England painting on
the Devon-Cornwall coast.
Street Scenes. Painters reveal their nationality
in nothing more clearly than in their rendering of
the sights of every-day life. Houses in Richmond
Street, by Mr. Lawren S. Harris, could only have
been painted in Toronto. This was one of the
three finest canvases in the exhibition and attracted
attention on account of its simplicity of composition
and the wealth of its impasto. The shadows of
the leaves of the yellowing maples, thrown by the
vivid sun upon the white
stuccoed walls and green
jalousies, are splendidly
worked up in secondary
tones by a full brush.
The effect is almost illu-
sive, we have the shadows
of shadows dipped in grey
and gold. Craig Street,
Montreal, by Mr. Maurice
Cullen, also claimed
general attention as a fine
example of the effect of
winter’s meagre and
solemn colouring on
canvas. Mr. Cullen excels
in the rendition of mists
and shadows. In New-
foundland—that dour
land of ice and fog—he
finds endless subjects for
his sympathetic brush.
Another painter of much
promise in the same line
of atmospheric effects is
Mr. James E. H. Mac-
Donald. His Early
Winter’s Evening has
been purchased by the
Canadian Government
for the National Gallery
at Ottawa. The picture
of his, however, which
caused the most interest
was Tracks and Traffic,
a tour de force of the
249
“THE CONFIDANTE”
BY E. WYLY GRIER, R.C.A.
sky, rock, and water are American in character.
There is a boldness and tonality in Gagen’s treat-
ment of water which give distinction to his work.
He is an adept, too, in rendering stretches of the
glorious St. Lawrence River, with its emeraldine-
topaz tones of water, its great indigo-purple bluffs
—topped with green-russet downs, and weird
deposits of prehistoric lacustrine sands of ruddy
hue. Surf has been purchased by the Canadian
Government. Mr. A. M. Fleming’s The Moon and
the Fading Day, painted off the coast of Maine, also
revealed a master hand in the rendition of aqueous
glories of the eventide. Mr. Farquhar McG.
Knowles’s Evening Gloiv—capriciously so styled—
was of quite a different order. His good ship has
weathered fearsome gales and now lies at anchor
by the Quebec pier, her battered hull being the
painter’s looking-glass of the sun, reflecting the
westering orb of day. Mr. Knowles is a past-
master in ship-building and ship-sailing—he knows
every detail from keel to mast-head. He has
painted many admirable compositions of battleships
of to-day. One of Canada’s best marine painters,
Mr. W. M. Cutts, was not well represented : he and
his artist wife were away in England painting on
the Devon-Cornwall coast.
Street Scenes. Painters reveal their nationality
in nothing more clearly than in their rendering of
the sights of every-day life. Houses in Richmond
Street, by Mr. Lawren S. Harris, could only have
been painted in Toronto. This was one of the
three finest canvases in the exhibition and attracted
attention on account of its simplicity of composition
and the wealth of its impasto. The shadows of
the leaves of the yellowing maples, thrown by the
vivid sun upon the white
stuccoed walls and green
jalousies, are splendidly
worked up in secondary
tones by a full brush.
The effect is almost illu-
sive, we have the shadows
of shadows dipped in grey
and gold. Craig Street,
Montreal, by Mr. Maurice
Cullen, also claimed
general attention as a fine
example of the effect of
winter’s meagre and
solemn colouring on
canvas. Mr. Cullen excels
in the rendition of mists
and shadows. In New-
foundland—that dour
land of ice and fog—he
finds endless subjects for
his sympathetic brush.
Another painter of much
promise in the same line
of atmospheric effects is
Mr. James E. H. Mac-
Donald. His Early
Winter’s Evening has
been purchased by the
Canadian Government
for the National Gallery
at Ottawa. The picture
of his, however, which
caused the most interest
was Tracks and Traffic,
a tour de force of the
249
“THE CONFIDANTE”
BY E. WYLY GRIER, R.C.A.