THE GROUP OF SEVEN

Last summer, I spent three weeks north of latitude 45 in the land of my birth, the “True North, strong and free” as Canada’s national anthem calls the country. One week of that trip was north of latitude 50, and stimulated much thought about the “Group of Seven” painters who were inspired by Tom Thomson. This year, I viewed and canoed some of the locations they painted, but also viewed and studied over 400 paintings by these eight painters at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the McMichael Canadian Collection. I could write a monograph about my reaction to their art, and perhaps I shall. In the meantime, I will provide the briefest of introductions for those unfamiliar with these very important painters.

Who were these people? They were artists in a new country who broke with the European tradition of tidy civilized landscapes (cultivated fields, tame rivers, oft-climbed Alpine mountains) to present distinctly Canadian wild landscapes. Backpacking, canoeing and using snowshoes when necessary, they went to previously unvisited locations to depict the light patterns filtered through struggling trees in the thin soil of Georgian Bay, Muskoka and Algonquin Park. They painted the grandeur of pre-Cambrian rock outcroppings in the Laurentian Plateau, the vast cliffs of formidable Lake Superior, the Algoma region, the Canadian Rockies and later the Arctic.

Tom Thomson (1877-1917) was a superb outdoorsman, a professional wilderness guide, and a self-taught painter whose bold brush strokes and use of undercolor distinguishes his painting. He inspired the others, but died in a canoeing mishap three years before the “Group of Seven” held its first exhibition, so is officially not one of them. The shed in which he lived has been moved to the grounds of the McMichael gallery. The illustration shows Thomson's "Byng Inlet, Georgian Bay."


Lawren Harris (1885-1970) was the most visionary of the Group. His paintings became more abstract and geometrical with time, particularly after his visits to the Canadian Rockies and the Arctic. In 1932, he discontinued representational painting altogether and became an abstract painter. Along with five other members of the Group of Seven, he is buried on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Collection with (most appropriately) a triangular rock as a headstone. Harris was an heir to the Massey-Harris fortune. In 1914 he built the Studio Building on Severn Street in Toronto with six high-ceilinged north-lit studios. In this building (which still stands), some members of the Group of Seven lived and painted their large finished oils, working from field paintings that were most often on 12”x12” birch panels. Many of these panels are at the Art Gallery Ontario, where some can be compared with the resulting large final paintings. The illustration shows Harris's 1926 painting "North Shore, Lake Superior."

A.Y. Jackson (1882-1974) continued in the tradition of the Group of Seven long after the other members went separate ways. He was an inspiration to many Canadian artists and the subject of an excellent 1941 documentary film by the Canadian Film Board that shows the artist in his late fifties canoeing to his chosen site for fall colors and then painting in the Studio Building. That 18-minute film is shown at the McMichael gallery.

J.E.H. MacDonald (1873-1932) was born in England but had embraced his new country. As a senior designer at a Toronto graphic design firm, he was a shy leader who brought together several members of the Group. His death signaled the end of the period when they could be considered a group.

J.H. Varley (1881-1969) and Arthur Lismer (1885-1969) had also come to Canada from England, while Frank Carmichael (1890-1943) and Frank (Franz) Johnston (1888-1949) were born in Canada. Johnston moved to Winnipeg shortly after the 1920 show that gave the group its name, and was replaced by A.J. Casson (1898-1992). Edwin Holgate (1892-1977) and British Columbia artist Emily Carr (1871-1945) shared the inspiration of the Group, and Harris communicated extensively with Carr. "Serenity, Lake-of-the-Woods" is a 1922 painting by Johnston.


The importance of these artists cannot be overstated. Robert Blue (1946-1998) instructed his classes at the Art League of Los Angeles that to understand plein air, they must study the Group of Seven. Serious landscape painters should consider examining this large body of art in Toronto and visiting northern Ontario to paint on location as they did.

Several of the Group served as military artists in the Great War from 1914 to 1918. After their return, the Group rented a boxcar, fitted it out with living accommodation, and until 1923 positioned it on various railroad sidings in the Algoma region north of Sault Ste. Marie. From their boxcar, they would canoe or hike to the sites they wished to paint. The Algoma Central Railway now runs excursions to the Agawa Canyon, so modern artists need not live in a boxcar in order to paint where the Group of Seven painted. It may be a thousand miles from Asheville, but the trip is worthwhile.

© 2009 Edward C. McIrvine

Arts Spectrum column #449

September 4, 2009