Portrait
A large portrait of William Davidson felling trees on the Miramichi hangs on an internal staircase of the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta. This is very appropriate as Davidson was a native of Moray, very near the boundary with Banffshire, Scotland.
The painting has been in the possession of the hotel for many years, and hotel staff believe that it was painted in the last years of the 19th century. It identifies Davidson as Canada's first lumberman, surely a misnomer. He was, perhaps, the first English speaking person to establish a significant commercial lumber business in Canada. But long before, French settlers cut trees for their own use and for local markets.
Read more about this topic: William Davidson (lumberman)
Famous quotes containing the word portrait:
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)
“I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)