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HUMANITIES 207 thoughts. The only certainty greater than Richard's fear is the knowledge that he must explore his link with nature in order to have something worthwhile to paint. Readers of Gabrielle Roy will recognize the simple yet profound awe in the face of the natural world and the appreciation of mankind that she clearly saw in Richard. The latter's reflections on the spontaneous generosity of the Indians, and the lack of it in the Whites of the cities, are also highly reminiscent of the Roy novel. Nor does Quenneville spare details in recounting the obstacles that Richard had to contend with on his journey - the cold, illness, blackflies, hunger, and lack of funds. The artist's meeting with a beggar in Flin Flon affords the opportunity to give a touching personal account ofhow the Depression of the 1930S affected Canada, and the West in particular. What emerges from this narrative, in spite of all this, however, is more the account of a journey than the story of a man. We learn something of the man Rene Richard but not as much as we would have liked. The accumulation of detail?of the journey tends to conceal the personality of the traveller. Quenneville says ofRichard and a friend, 'les deux hommes s'amusaient de ces menus details du quotidien.' The reader would have been happier with either fewer 'menus details' or a longer book, in order to get a deeper insight into the man. Perhaps Quenneville, or someone else, will afford such insights when the full biography of Rene Richard is written, as it certainly will be. Still, the volume is a useful contribution to our knowledge about the life of an important Canadian. It is particularly valuable as a complement to Gabrielle Roy's fictional portrait of the artist. (PAUL G. SOCKEN) David Burnett. Harold Town McClelland and Stewart 1986. 240, illus. $29.95 paper Harold Town is a book well worth reading and an essential document in any library of Canadian art history. An extensive and well-articulated essay is complemented by a good bibliography, a catalogue of the exhibition, and a list of exhibitions in which this artist was represented between 1946 and 1985. Yet, despite the obvious care with which it has been assembled, the book fails to generate the enthusiasm that it should. This for one major reason: the author's unsatisfactory treatment of the reasons that Harold Town, a mainstream figure at one time, now operates in the margins of our current art system and is given decreasing critical attention. In his book, Burnett mentions some of the factors which may account for this state of affairs: the artist's frequent 'shifts of "manners,'" his lack of followers, 'Canadian reticence' towards our own heroes (16-19). To counter the trend, Burnett proposes to 'look from the work into history, 208 LETTERS IN CANADA 1987 not the other way around. Rather than starting with a belief that Canadian art history should be written from the viewpoint of how individual artists match up to·standards - invariably drawn from elsewhere - why not begin with the exceptional artist as an exception, and show how the exceptional can change our assumptions?' (18). Had Burnettindeed followed the approach he outlines here (despite his arguable assumption that 'standards' at this particular point in Canadian art history are invariably drawn from elsewhere), he might have been able to reconsider Town's place in Canadian art history. Instead Burnett not only disregards developments in the Canadian art scene after Town's early years - the 1950S and early 1960s - but relies on parallels to the American mainstream. There is total silence on Town's relationship with Toronto's new generation at the time when several important new forces were emerging in Canada - in particular the artist-run spaces and the commercial network, areas which appear to have presented Town with serious difficulties. This is the period which coincides with Town's increasing critical neglect. In fact, the transition 'from the work into history' is never made here, with the inevitable result that at the end, Town is declared an 'outsider' (200). This judgment is both regrettable and shocking. Town is as representative...

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