
English: 
We’re here in the last gallery of
‘David Milne: Modern Painting’
and what we see is Milne is finally back
in Canada,
he’s finally making connections to the
people that understand his work.
For the first time, since the New York
years,
he actually has a group of colleagues that
are really on the same page with him
and you can feel it, I think, in the kind of
euphoria of some of the work
from this period, which is so paired down,
so full of vitality and so raw
and this little picture, The Big Dipper,
which belongs to the National Gallery of
Canada,
is just a perfect example of this late 
phase.
It is a picture of the stars in the night sky 
but you’ll notice a strange thing about this
picture is that the sky is a kind of blonde
and the stars, in fact, are dark blue so this
is part of the mystery of Milne.
How does he make a convincing
nighttime scene
when it’s actually daytime colours?
That is an enigma that I can’t really
unravel for you
because it’s just sheer magic, but there
are other things about this picture

English: 
that are also very subtle and very
wonderful
like the fact that this horizon line just tips
ever so gently
so you have this feeling of being kind of
launched off into space.
There is a real expansiveness in this little
picture even though it’s so small,
it’s so extraordinarily mighty not
withstanding and I’ve come to think
that that’s one of the real gifts of David
Milne to Canadian art
and maybe even to international art
is that he’s able to really capture that
experience we have in Canada
of a nature that is not a European nature,
it’s not cultivated by man,
it doesn’t bear the marks of mankind or
industry or agriculture.
So much of it is just raw, barren, and open
to the elements.
So here you see Northern Lights and
stars,
this one you see a lightning strike that’s
happening in the landscape,
this last one here,
which is coming to us from the McMichael
Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg,
is this explosion of beautiful chalky white
clouds

Italian: 
si no

Italian: 
maschio

English: 
that are kind of moving in from stage left
here and meeting this expanse of sky
but the picture is carved into quadrants,
that each of them hold their own
either for the interest that they have in
their texture, or the colour blue.
I mean, that’s a perfect example of Milne’s
ingenuity right there.
The blue is in the water and we thereby
know that it’s sunny sky above.
These are the kind of little mastery moves
that he makes
that make the paintings so intriguing to
look at and to unravel
You have to really look to figure out where
the genius of these pictures is
but you certainly feel it.
