Charles Beale, Manly Edward MacDonald (1889-1971), Interpreter of Old Ontario, Napanee, 2010, page 10
Albert H. Robson, Canadian Landscape Painters, Toronto, 1932, page 168
Manly MacDonald has forever captured the stone buildings, bridges, mills and farming practices of rural Ontario, recording landmarks that have now been lost with the changing landscape of towns and the surrounding countryside. As Robson notes: “MacDonald is a painter of distinctly Canadian subjects, with a charm of colour and a free capable technique. He is a sincere interpreter of Old Ontario, finding romance along the waterfront of Lake Ontario and in the older settled parts of the province.”
As an en plein air painter, MacDonald would be dressed for all seasons when traversing the countryside, from his down-filled suit, fleece-lined boots and fur hat in winter, to a Macintosh jacket in the fall, or donning a fedora or canvas fishing hat in the milder weather. The artist was forever prepared for the elements in pursuit of his artistic endeavours to capture “old Ontario”, and as Blair Laing shared, “the choice of subject is appropriate to his personality as an artist – to his outstanding qualities of sincerity and simplicity, his preference for primary colours and pure tones, and his insistence upon composition as the most important element in successful painting.”
