The Paintings of Homer Watson

KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT, a native of Ethiopia who lives in Canada, reflects upon an exhibit on the Canadian landscape artist Homer Watson. She considers the exhibit’s political agenda. She writes:
Homer Watson was born in 1855 in Doon, Ontario (now Kitchener). He started to paint as a young child encouraged by his father and his aunt. He never received any formal art training, but acquired his skill and artistic sense through various artist mentors he sought as he developed his talent.
Watson was called “the Canadian Constable,” and “the man who first saw Canada as Canada, rather than as dreamy blurred pastiches of European painting.” While he holds this noble acclamation, he has nonetheless been overshadowed by the more forceful Group of Seven artists.
The AGM’s exhibition showed us Watson’s southern Canadian landscapes, amidst its farms and homesteads, as civilized and vibrant, and as separate from America. He is the first nationalist Canadian painter, earlier even than the much touted Group of Seven painters. (more…)




