things which are really interesting to Canadians to-day are politics, railroads, real estate, Manitoba wheat, and "having a good time." In a decade or so it will be different perhaps. The example of Mr. Peel's work, "Apres le Bain," here reproduced, is the picture which gained the gold medal in the last Salon. The black and white gives no idea of the luminousness and warmth of the picture. The same qualities are seen in his "Tired Cupid," a fairhaired little fellow of about five years old crying behind an easel, from round the corner of which a big-bearded artist is good-naturedly regarding him. It was while he was working in Constant's atelier that Mr. Peel made his greatest progress; and the fact of his having studied under several masters has saved him from the slightest tendency of becoming a mere imitator. The ad Hamilton McCarthy. F. M. Bell-Smith. pletely out of the world-certainly out of the world of art. Mr. Harris's father was one of the pioneers in the days of small things; but young Robert Harris was destined for art. All other occupations were hateful to him. Almost as soon as his fingers could hold a pencil, he drew the people and things about him, and the rough plaster of his bedroom walls was covered with large pictures painted from Bible stories and the standard authors; some were copies from woodcuts vantage of hearing the judgments of after Raphael and Guilio Romano, but different studios upon contemporary most of them were his own compositions. masters made him strike out for himself, These used to occupy him from daylight and all his work has the stamp of orig- until it was time for school, and he was inality without the least suspicion of the at them again directly school was dismerely bizarre. The picture which has missed. There were no means of studywon for him his greatest fame was suggested ing art in Charlottetown, and at thirteen to him by one of his own little ones, years of age, Mr. Harris was put into the fresh from the bath, happening to take a business of surveying, an altogether dispretty pose before the open fire. tasteful employment, but which still Among the Canadian painters of emi- allowed considerable opportunities of study from nature in the woods. By dint of persistent, unremitting effort-studying outdoors, and painting members of his own family, and sketching himself nude before a looking-glass, Mr. Harris gradually acquired a certain command over his art, and soon began to receive a good many commissions for portraits. He was passionately fond of reading, and all this time he had been making an immense number of compositions illustrative of his favorite authors. An appreciative stranger, happening to see these sketches, persuaded just as he had obtained such a fine introduction to the art world of Boston, his eyesight failed him. The commission had to be given up, Percy Woodcock. him to go to Boston and take up illustrating as a profession. He followed this advice, and took with him some drawings from Hawthorne, Goldsmith, and Sterne, which brought him a commission from Fields and Osgood, the Paul Peel. famous publishing house, to illustrate Hawthorne. He was delighted with his prospective success; but unfortunately, and he returned to his home and spent a year of enforced idleness-a year filled with sad forebodings. Then he went to England, and after consulting Sir R. Bowmen, the famous oculist, he was able to resume his work, studying for some time under Legros at the Slade School of Art, connected with the University of London. After a visit home, he entered the atelier of Bonnat at Paris, and exhibited in the Salon, the Royal Academy in London, and several other of the leading English exhibitions. At this time everything tended to keep Mr. Harris on the other side for good, as he was getting together a very respectable clientele; but he did not care to tear up all the old associations in Canada, and a commission from the Dominion Government to paint a large canvas of the "Fathers of Confederation," decided him to return home. This is a large picture, containing thirtyfour figures of the most prominent statesmen of Canada, a few of whom are still in politics; and it represented, as far as it was possible to reconstruct it, the meeting at which the several provinces were merged into the Dominion with a federal government. After the execution of this work, Mr. Harris settled in Montreal, spending considerable time in the galleries of England, France, Holland, and Belgium, during the summer months. He is principally a figure painter, and the pictures by which he is best known are pictures taken from the actual life of the country folk of Canada, such as "A Meeting of the School Trustees" and "The Local Stars of Pine Creek." "The School Trustees," together with the "Fathers of Federation," is in the Na FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN HAMMOND, IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. WM. WHITMAN, BROOKLINE, MASS. the first to depict these curious types and characters and scenes in Canada. Subjects of this kind, full of possibilities for clever character studies, have a special attraction for him, as it is always the human interest which he loves best to see in a picture. These pictures attracted considerable attention in the Colonial Exhibition in London, and were engraved several times. Mr. Harris carries the same enthusiasm and insight into his portrait painting, which as he says, intelligently and conscientiously done, is often very delightful work. He is the best portrait painter in Canada, and he has more commissions than he can execute, as he will never consent to do anything hastily. He has never degraded his art by practising the commercial portrait painting which is so common in Canada. When in England he made a is adding to the series of genre pictures upon which his reputation mainly rests. He is one of the original members of the Canadian Academy, and was recently elected president, but declined the office. The work of Percy Woodcock is in strong contrast to that of Mr. Harris. Here is another artist who is thoroughly impregnated with the spirit and teachings of the modern French school. A glance at his canvases shows the influences under which he has worked, though he has accepted none of the more brutal methods of the revolutionary school. In rejecting romanticism, he has avoided. the incongruities of the wilfully impressionistic methods, and has gone direct to nature, as the best of the modern landscape painters have done. All Mr. Woodcock's pictures have the same dominant characteristic - fidelity to nature. Mr. Woodcock belongs to the "outdoor" painters. In all his landscapes there is that warmth and transparency of color, and atmosphere, which is often so conspicuously absent in English galleries, amid much excellent work, for the reason that the English artists are debarred from revealing the object in actual light, and are compelled to exclude the glare of natural effects. It was this which made Turner's struggle for fame such a long and weary one; and Turner has had no successors. But there is sentiment and commentary in Mr. Woodcock's work; it is not merely a revelation of contour and color. It does not give simply a landscape-it gives the artist's conception of it. Mr. Woodcock comes from Brockville, Ontario; but he has studied in Paris, with short absences, since 1878, entering the École des Beaux Arts, as a pupil of Gérome, in that year. Here he remained four years, during which time he was awarded the first place as a draughtsman, in the concour for places, a great honor for a Canadian artist, such men as Kenyon Cox, Thayer, Stott and other prominent American artists, being at that time pupils of Gérome. After receiving a thorough training under Gérome, he became a pupil of Benjamin Constant, so as to obtain a knowledge of color, Constant being considered to have no equal in this respect. In 1883, Mr. Woodcock exhibited his first picture, "Pifferari," in the Salon. The following year he had two pictures admitted, "Revenant du Puits," and "Le Nid Abandonné," reproduced in these columns. The first is a bit of Grez on the Marne, a favorite resort of artists. The scene is a typical French one; a young peasant girl carry ing her earthenware pitcher and clad in the loose, picturesque costume of Northern France, walking down the narrow path with the slow ungraceful gait of the peasantry, under a blazing noon Henry Sandham. tide sun. There is a witchery about this theme, the full value of which can only be appreciated by an artist. The unbroken glare of a noonday sun is a very difficult effect to produce on canvas. It is a subject which, not carefully and excellently done, becomes harsh and unpleasantmere color, in a word. The other picture represents a baby-faced peasant boy, who, whilst gathering poppies for his rabbits, has found a bird's nest, deserted by the mother bird, with four eggs inside, which the little fellow regards with evident curiosity. All around him is the yellow grain, relieved by the soft blue of the sky above, and the brilliant waving poppies scattered through it. The aerial perspective is charming. There is not only distance, but one actually feels the heat. The picture was reproduced in several of the French and English art magazines, but this is the first time it has been published in America. Mr. Woodcock's work gained admission to the Salon in two other exhibitions. The most important picture was "Le Fin du Jour," which appeared in 1888 and was put on the list for recompense, and only missed obtain ing a medal by three voices. It is probably the most finished and excellent of his productions. A good many of his best pictures are owned by collectors in New York and other American cities. He is at present making sketches in Canada for future pictures. Mr. George Agnew Reid is on the right side of thirty and is one of the most promising of the younger men. He studied for some years under Thomas Eakins in the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and also in the ateliers of Benjamin Constant, Rixens and DagnanBouveret in Paris. Since 1889, he has lived in Toronto, but has exhibited in the Salon, and the Academy Exhibitions in Philadelphia. He belongs to the realistic school, choosing familiar subjects from the simple life of the farming communities of Ontario, his native province. Some of his principal pictures are, "The Call to Dinner," "Gossip," both in the possession of a Toronto collector; "Drawing Lots," a splendid piece of realism, representing two boys on a wall in a |