THE FINE ARTS IN CANADA. By Newton MacTavish , (The MacMillan
Company of Canada, Limited. 21s. Dell MR. MACTAVISH says that the whole purpose of his book "
to make known something about the progress of art, especial the fine art of painting, in a country where art has not yet
become an urgent national need." He does this unpreten- tiously, gives many illustrations and biographical notes, and his book, therefore, forms a useful work of reference for those specially interested in things Canadian. It is t°13 uncritical, we fear, to attract others. We know that S. W. Morrice was a painter of genuine, if frail, distinction an-I that there are a number of fresh and vigorous landscape painters in Canada—artists like Clarence Gagnon, Lauren Harris, and A. H. Robinson are much too good to be patronized— but the effect of the rest is to show what Canadian painters lose by the absence of keen criticism and encouragement from those who feel art to be " an urgent need."
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