Opinion

My late paternal grandfather was the greatest painter I knew in my youth. His medium, oil. His technique, paint by numbers. And four of "his" priceless works that once lined the wall heading upstairs at his Ohio home grace my office today.

There's the regal Indian chief holding his peace pipe. There's the hauntingly beautiful Indian squaw, in profile, with a papoose strapped to her back. And there's an oddity that remains a real head-scratcher -- a ship, in port, both anchor lines in the water but its sails at full mast.

Then there is an exquisite knockoff of Winslow Homer's classic "Breezing Up" from 1876. It's the paint-by-numbers version of men sailing in choppy waters (completed this very month in 1966; Pop dated everything) that lit the spark of a lifelong fascination with not only lake- and seaside but the quirky Bostonian who loved his solitude.

And just recently into my possession came two copies of Mr. Homer's work.

One is an 1893 photogravure of the 1885 classic "The Herring Net," featuring two full-slickered fishermen in a rowboat struggling to pull in their catch.

The other is an ink drawing, "The Strawberry Bed," which illustrated J.T. Trowbridge's delightful tale of a conversation between a child and a strawberry from the original July 1868 Harper's Weekly.

They are exquisite treasures.

Winslow Homer speaks to me in a manner rendering me speechless. And for a person seldom shy about speaking his mind, at least in print, that is humbling indeed.

-- Colin McNickle

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