The Old Mill

Private Collection, Ontario

Jane VanEvery, With Faith, Ignorance and Delight: Homer Watson, Homer Watson Trust, England, 1967, page 57 J. Russell Harper, Homer Watson, R.C.A., 1855-1936: Paintings and Drawings, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1963, page 20

J. Russell Harper described Homer Watson as “the man who first saw Canada as Canada” in the 1963 Homer Watson retrospective exhibition catalogue. Watson had a deep appreciation for the beauty and power of nature, and was celebrated for his nostalgic, pastoral compositions. Growing up in Doon, Ontario, Watson was the grandson of both German and British settlers. Both his heritage and rural environs informed his paintings, the artist passionate about the splendour of nature co-existing in harmony with humanity. Watson commemorated southern Ontario’s pioneers and early settlers in his renderings of old mills, placid landscapes and scenes of watering cattle. When describing his rambling painting forays in the countryside, Watson observed: “Truly feverish anxiety marks the artist when nature holds her gems before him. Trembling with eagerness he endeavours to pick them up, but he finds the brush a sorry instrument... Anon a few lucky strokes gather into something definable, and painter and nature are linked together.”