bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1992) — Spring 1992 // Printemps 1992, pp. 44–45
Historical Sketches of Ottawa by Leslie
Maitland and Louis Taylor, Broadview
Press, 1990, 152 pp., $29.95.
At first glance, Historical Sketches of Ottawa seems to fill an important gap in the body of work written on our fair Capital city. If we consider the concept and content of old favourites like Robert Haig’s well-illustrated and highly readable historical journal, Ottawa, City of the Big Ears, or Shirley Wood’s solid historical text, Ottawa, The Capital of Canada [alas now out of print], then a book that sets out to give a sense of the architectural texture and character of the city should be a welcome addition.
Certainly there is a seductive quality about the drawings as one glances through the pages. The consistent pencil technique and similarity of scale are very effective in terms of conveying a tactile impression of a particular period of Ottawa’s historical architectural fabric. The immediacy of the vantage point helps to bring the buildings close to the eye, as if one could reach out and touch them. In the kind and gentle wood drawing of Wellington Street, sans cars or disfiguring street signs, one could imagine stepping directly into the picture. Certainly anyone familiar with a particular building will enjoy the intimacy of the drawing style.
It is, however, unfortunate that author and artist have not shown more imagination and method in coordinating illustrations to the written description. One wonders which came first, drawings or text, because the collaborative idea for the book is not well established. For example, when the author asks us to “note the fine architectural details around the main door” of the Archbishop’s Palace, the drawing includes the dormers and bay windows, but only a small-scale and blurry distant view of the ’fine’ doorway. On another page, we must assume that the enigmatic photo of the Byward Market is the Cumberland Street setting for the facing illustration, the Rathier House.
It would help a great deal if the drawings themselves had been given captions noting the street address and explaining the aspect of the building being illustrated, preferably with cross-referencing to the text. As it is, even a reader familiar with the city has to peer into the page, of the small photos provided, to guess what the particular point is. The lack of identifying clips is frustrating.
Which leads to a major criticism of the book, and that is its purpose or concept. If it is intended as a guide for a walking tour, it is neither sufficiently systematic nor is it a convenient size for consultation while trying to figure out where you are from a map that you had to buy in order to locate the buildings illustrated. Whether guide or coffee table book, it would have been useful and enlightening to include at least a contemporary map of the areas being presented, to say nothing of small diagrammatic keys to each chapter. As a walking tour guide [as the author suggests], it would surely be maddening. In addition to the provision of some kind of key, it would have helped to at least identify each of the districts in which the buildings are grouped. The unheralded leaps from, for example, the Laurier House in Sandy Hill to the Drill Hall in Centretown are somewhat confusing even to the Ottawa-born. Why not in a case like this also include a drawing of the Laurier Bridge heritage sub-structure to give some visual linking of ideas and structures?
This leads to the last point concerning the drawings. Pleasing to the eye they are, and no reader appreciates such an attribute more than this one. However, the pleasure soon wears thin as page after page shows photo and drawing side by side, each looking pretty well identical. What, for example, do we learn from the No. 7 Rideau Gate drawing that the photograph does not tell us? Exactly the same view is taken, only the summer canopy is added for the drawing. Likewise Laurier House, Stadacona Hall, and so on. In the example of St. Andrew’s church, why not go inside and draw some detail to illustrate the point in the text? Why not in fact do some precise before and after shots [i.e. O’Shea’s Market Ireland]? Picture and illustration should not duplicate but rather complement each other.
Leslie Maitland’s text is scholarly and informative. The text for the La Salle Academy, for instance, is well-researched and stated, and interesting for the wider context into which she places the Ottawa vernacular. A small illustration of the Palladian ’style’ would perhaps have made the point more accessible to the general reader.
It is regrettable that author and illustrator were not more committed to establishing a common concept and rigour in the coordination of the material. As it stands, the book makes an attractive image for the coffee table, but ultimately is fundamentally disappointing as a book of serious reference.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1992) — Spring 1992 // Printemps 1992, pp. 44–45. Read the rest of this issue →
