Savage beauty – Canada in paint at the Dulwich

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Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven

Katie Campbell discovers Canada's modernist backwoodsmen

Tom Thomson’s mysterious death in 1917 sealed his place in the Canadian psyche.  One summer evening the artist’s upturned canoe was discovered floating in calm water; nine days later his body surfaced with a crack in the skull.  There was talk of suicide after a pregnant woman demanded the sanction of marriage.  There was talk of a drunken brawl and an unpatriotic neighbour, either of which might have led to murder or manslaughter. Misadventure is the least likely scenario as Thomson was famed for his prowess as a backwoodsman; setting off with his supplies in early spring, he’d remain in the wilderness till the autumn snows drove him back to Toronto, to spend the winter turning his sketches into finished canvases.

Dulwich continues its tradition of dazzling small shows with ‘Painting Canada’,which explores the work of Thomson and other early 20th-century artists who broke from the European tradition to develop a unique Canadian style.  As Canada is famously said to have too little history and too much geography, it is hardly surprising that these pioneering modernists took nature as their subject, seeking the Sublime in the barren outposts of their vast country.  Hitherto dismissed as too rough to be the topic of art, they approached the wilderness with reverence, infusing their works with a vivid spirituality which owes something to late-19th-century Transcendentalism and early-20th-century Theosophy.  Combining Arts and Craft decoration, Fauvist colour, Expressionist energy and Pointillist brushwork, they developed a distinct, new, visual language and captured the spirit of the fledgling nation. 

The exhibition’s subtitle, Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, gives due weight to the enigmatic artist who spearheaded the movement.  Thomson is Canada’s mythic hero; young, virile, self taught, his broad brush strokes and thick daubs of paint perfectly capture the stark beauty of Canada’s rugged landscape.  His iconic work The Jack Pine (1916) provided the country with a national identity: its lone pine tree clings to rocks against an empty lake, looming mountains and a ravishing sky.

His sketches, and those of his followers, are perhaps the greatest legacy of these intrepid artists.  Their swift strokes brilliantly evoke elusive natural details, severe weather conditions and extreme topographical situations.  Dulwich displays these sketches beside the finished paintings so viewers can chart the process from initial impulse to gallery canvas.  Often the fleeting effects of the sketches – the steely cold of Thomson’s Spring Ice, the devastating force of his West Wind or the eerie illumination of his Northern Lights – are diluted as lines are smoothed, colours are heightened and forms are formalized in the finished product. 

In 1920, three years after Thompson’s death, his followers formed a loose alliance, known as the Group of Seven, to secure gallery space and press coverage.  Shifts in allegiance meant the group was rarely, in fact, seven, and within a dozen years they’d gained enough recognition to disband and pursue their own agendas.  Dulwich has cleverly ordered the exhibition both geographically and chronologically, so viewers can chart the development of the group as they explored new territories and developed new techniques.  

Beginning with Thomson’s startling portrayals of Algonquin Park – Canada’s oldest national park, located near Toronto – the exhibition tracks the expansion outwards as his followers, armed with backpacks and canoes, sought new settings after his death.  Georgian Bay, to the north, provided a vast, airy sweep of wind-whipped water, which appealed to Fred Varley.  Algoma Park to the south offered dramatic forest settings that inspired Frank Carmichael’s bold colourist style.  Here, too, Frank Johnson honed his decorative tapestry effects while Sheffield Art School-trained Arthur Lismer roughed up his impressionist approach in deference to the harsh surroundings.  Quebec, to the east, offered a gentler, agricultural image celebrated by A.Y. Jackson in charming winter pastorals.  British Columbia on the west coast moved Fred Varley to create brash, fauvist landscapes.  J.E.H MacDonald was also drawn to this terrain, simplifying the monumental mountains and swirling skies into flat graphic planes.  In the far north the Arctic provided an austere environment that pushed Lawren Harris to abstraction.  Indeed a virtual shrine to Harris’ work ends the exhibition. This dark room, with spotlights illuminating still, glacial ice floes, provides a dramatic contrast to Thomson’s vibrant forest paintings at the beginning.

The catalogue, edited and largely written by Dulwich’s curator, Ian Dejardin, provides a rich introduction to this intriguing group. Co-curator Anna Hudson, professor of Canadian Art History at Toronto’s York University, looks at the myths around Thomson:  the appeal of the wild in that age of disillusionment and the recent anxiety provoked by the idea of a white man usurping the Aboriginal intimacy with nature.  She also makes the point that Algonquin Park, his chosen subject, was a highly controlled space with a significant industrial heritage, and not the pristine wilderness that it was perceived to be – indeed, Thomson’s signature birch trees were the result of secondary growth after the logging industry had cleared the virgin forest.

Katerina Atanassova, chief curator at Canada’s McMichael Collection, touches on such tantalizing themes as the effect of the First World War on Canada’s artists and the influence of Asian art.  Nils Ohlsen, Director at Norway’s National Museum, looks at the influence of Scandinavian art while Marietta Jansen, Curator at the Groninger Museum, places the Group of Seven within the European Expressionist landscape tradition.  Dejardin describes the cultural context and provides the background to the artists and their development, individually and as a group. He mentions the Grip Corporation, a Toronto engraving firm where many of the artists first met as hired hands.  This stint in the commercial world clearly honed their drafting skills and taught them the power of the image; it would have been interesting to see some of their early commercial work to help appreciate their development as artists. 

Apart from that, however, the catalogue is informative, wide ranging and brilliantly produced with stunning reproductions of both paintings and sketches.  It is also enriched with poignant photos of the artists canoeing, fishing, drinking together, sketching from boxcars, fallen logs and icy snow fields; these remind viewers of the courage, passion and sheer determination these artists demonstrated in their commitment to capturing the Canadian scene. 

The catalogue of Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven  edited by Ian A.C. Dejardin is published by Philip Wilson Publishers, 2011. 216 pp.,  157 colour illus, £25.oo. ISBN 978-0-85667-708-3