HORSES
degrades Canada's cultural footprint.
ASK. DON'T COPY
Horses would have been everywhere in the early 1920’s in Montréal. They pulled streetcars, sleighs in winter and hay carts in summer months. They are a symbolic reminder of the old days of gathering sap for maple syrup by horse and cart. Horses pulled the seasonal ice carts that hauled ice for the summer months from the St. Lawrence River before the thaw.
There is such wonderful movement and action in this hastily-scribbled sketch on a scrap of torn paper. This is the sketch for the finished oil painting of the Peanut Vendor. Each of these individuals has a personal story to tell. Where do they live, go to school and just imagine peanuts for only 5 cents!
Kathleen has labelled her choice of colours for this sketch of transporting the maple sap for ‘sugaring off’ and producing maple syrup.
Large dray horses like this would have been common in Québec and Montréal in the early part of the 20th century. The pitch-black Percheron horses used by the Dawes Black Horse Ale Brewery were a familiar sight in both cities, pulling the brewery carts delivering ale. As a child in the early 1950’s, the most wonderful treat was to be taken to visit the stables of the Dawes Black Horses in west Montréal.
Now, if only I had kept the now-valuable iconic plaster replica of one of the Dawes horses . . . .
Here, again, Kathleen has envisaged her colourways writing Light Red, Dark Red, Natural and Blue for the inside of the sleigh. Such a natural pose for the horse resting his right hind leg.
This is a sepia print in the style of Kathleen Morris but the theme of the well-known Morning Mass in Berthiéville is clear. Note the traditional racoon coat worn by the person in the foreground.