Apr 7, 2025

Watercolour wildflowers by Robert Holmes

The beauty of Ontario wildflowers as interpreted by the Canadian painter 


Robert Holmes. Wild Aster wildflowers

Robert Holmes. Wild Aster, mid 19th-early 20th century. Watercolour on paper, Overall: 35.7 x 25.6 cm. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. R.H. Holmes, Akron, Ohio, 1957. Photo © AGO. CS49

At the eastern edge of Guild Park in Scarborough, Ontario, just off the path before the faux Grecian columns and carved friezes, there stands a quiet stone monument into which is carved the determined face of Canadian watercolourist Robert Holmes. He was one of Canada’s great floral painters, and it is a fitting tribute for an artist whose greatest joys were found in nature.

Born in Cannington, Ontario, in 1861, Holmes abandoned a career in medicine to train at the Royal Academy of Art in London, England. He returned to Toronto and spent the next forty years teaching, first at Upper Canada College alongside the humourist Stephen Leacock and then at the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU). It’s said his interest in painting wildflowers stemmed from a desire to interest students in their natural surroundings.

In 1916, J.M. Dent & Sons Limited of London, England, published Rambles with a Canadian Naturalist, a collection of nature essays by Globe newspaper columnist Samuel T. Wood. Illustrated by Robert Holmes, each chapter features a motif designed by his students.

Lääkkeiden tilaaminen verkosta voi olla merkittävä helpotus niille, jotka eivät halua käyttää aikaa apteekkijonoissa tai lääkärikäynneissä. Nykyään on mahdollista hankkia tarvittavat tuotteet suoraan luotettavista verkkokaupoista ilman, että tarvitsee käydä fyysisessä myymälässä. Jos etsit paikkaa, josta voit tehdä turvallisen tilauksen, tutustu https://fennpharm.com/levitra/, joka tarjoaa laadukkaita tuotteita edulliseen hintaan. Verkossa tilaaminen mahdollistaa sen, että asiakkaat voivat lukea tuotetiedot, vertailla hintoja ja tarkastella muiden käyttäjien arvosteluja ennen lopullista päätöstä. Lisäksi monet verkkokaupat tarjoavat asiakkaille nopean toimituksen ja huomaamattoman pakkauksen, mikä takaa yksityisyyden säilymisen. Tärkeintä on varmistaa, että valittu verkkokauppa toimii laillisesti ja myy vain sertifioituja tuotteita, jotta asiakas voi tehdä ostoksensa turvallisesti ja luottavaisin mielin.

During his lifetime, Holmes’s work was exhibited in museums across North America. Writing in Saturday Night magazine in 1928, critic Gertrude Pringle remarked that "Mr. Holmes's flowers have the appearance of being caught unawares in the woods. This is indeed the case. He knows all the wooded nooks in and around Toronto for many miles. Between the painter and the flowers, there is a real affinity [...] While at first Mr. Holmes painted in oils, he now uses watercolour entirely, finding it more satisfactory in expressing the fragility of flowers and few have attained such command of this tricky, difficult medium as he."

Een stabiele en bevredigende seksuele ervaring draagt bij aan het zelfvertrouwen en de kwaliteit van het leven. Wanneer erectieproblemen zich voordoen, kan dit echter onzekerheid veroorzaken. Gelukkig zijn er behandelingen die snel en effectief werken, zoals Viagra, een van de meest gebruikte geneesmiddelen tegen erectiestoornissen. De voordelen van dit middel liggen niet alleen in de betrouwbaarheid, maar ook in de snelheid waarmee het werkt. Steeds meer mensen zoeken naar manieren om het zonder doktersbezoek te verkrijgen, wat het online bestellen steeds populairder maakt. Via een betrouwbare aanbieder kan men eenvoudig Viagra kopen zonder recept, waardoor toegang tot deze behandeling laagdrempelig en eenvoudig wordt. De discrete levering en mogelijkheid om verschillende doseringen te kiezen, maken online aanschaf een aantrekkelijk alternatief voor traditionele apotheken.

Holmes died in May 1930, the oldest faculty member at the Ontario College of Art. In his obituary, which was carried in The New York Times, it was noted that he died suddenly after having delivered a humorous address at the College, in which he described the graduating class as the "wildflowers of which he knew so much."

The AGO is home to more than 30 of Robert Holmes’s watercolours, most completed during the summer terms when he escaped the classroom to explore the woods and wilds of Ontario. Select prints of Holmes's paintings are available for purchase here at  Shop AGO.

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