learning more about the development of landscape art - drawing, painting and photography - by exploring, sharing and doing
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Friday, 15 January 2010
Canada's Group of Seven at Algoma
I know nothing about Canada's Group of Seven or the Algoma Central Railway and the role it played in enabling them to access places they painted between 1918 and the 1960s but these two videos have made me want to find out more.
Great videos! Great stories often follow the railways here...
Algoma and the area around Lake Superior is unbelievably beautiful and many paintings were done following the Georgian Bay shore all the way to Superior. The styles of the different men of the original Group were very diverse; Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, Frank Varley, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston and Franklin Carmichael.
I had the privilege of meeting a later member, A.J. Casson, who was mentioned in the video, the year before he died.
To get an idea of the distances, Wawa is nearly 600 miles from Toronto. That is roughly the same distance as London, England to Inverness, Scotland. And you are only half way to Thunder Bay - still in Ontario!
I know for a fact that a couple of the paintings shown here were from the other side of the province. Tom Thomson's 'West Wind' shown near the end of the second video is actually from a sketch done at Grand Lake at the East end of Algonquin Park, a couple hours out of Ottawa.
As different as my style is from these artists, they had a profound effect on my early understanding of landscape painting. Wait until you get a look at Emily Carr.
What a treat seeing all those paintings. You can see a big Japanese influence in so many of them and I'm also reminded of Georgia O'Keefe. Wonderful discovery.
Thank you for putting up this two-part video, Katherine. As far I can tell, the paintings shown are as good as any Group of Seven images available on the internet -- especially if viewed on Full Screen!
Probably twenty years ago I was off-handedly dropped off at the McLaughlin Gallery in Ontario, to entertain myself whilst my disinterested boyfriend of the time went about his business. Ha! Fooled him! It turned out they had a fabulous exhibition on of Tom Thompson and the Group of Seven. I had never heard of them at the time, but was completely enamored of their work. The two books I bought that day remain treasured (and much-shared) elements of my library. Thanks for sharing, Katherine.
Here is a link to some G7 locations In Agawa Canyon, (Algoma) the images in the album have copy and paste links to their paintings. If you want to know how to access them message me through the album. https://picasaweb.google.com/114224116055024928868/GroupOfSevenAgawaCanyonLocations?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOCdoIzB3N6YJQ&feat=directlink
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Great videos! Great stories often follow the railways here...
ReplyDeleteAlgoma and the area around Lake Superior is unbelievably beautiful and many paintings were done following the Georgian Bay shore all the way to Superior. The styles of the different men of the original Group were very diverse; Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, Frank Varley, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston and Franklin Carmichael.
I had the privilege of meeting a later member, A.J. Casson, who was mentioned in the video, the year before he died.
To get an idea of the distances, Wawa is nearly 600 miles from Toronto. That is roughly the same distance as London, England to Inverness, Scotland. And you are only half way to Thunder Bay - still in Ontario!
I know for a fact that a couple of the paintings shown here were from the other side of the province. Tom Thomson's 'West Wind' shown near the end of the second video is actually from a sketch done at Grand Lake at the East end of Algonquin Park, a couple hours out of Ottawa.
As different as my style is from these artists, they had a profound effect on my early understanding of landscape painting. Wait until you get a look at Emily Carr.
What a treat seeing all those paintings. You can see a big Japanese influence in so many of them and I'm also reminded of Georgia O'Keefe. Wonderful discovery.
ReplyDeleteThank you for putting up this two-part video, Katherine. As far I can tell, the paintings shown are as good as any Group of Seven images available on the internet -- especially if viewed on Full Screen!
ReplyDeleteProbably twenty years ago I was off-handedly dropped off at the McLaughlin Gallery in Ontario, to entertain myself whilst my disinterested boyfriend of the time went about his business. Ha! Fooled him! It turned out they had a fabulous exhibition on of Tom Thompson and the Group of Seven. I had never heard of them at the time, but was completely enamored of their work. The two books I bought that day remain treasured (and much-shared) elements of my library. Thanks for sharing, Katherine.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to some G7 locations In Agawa Canyon, (Algoma) the images in the album have copy and paste links to their paintings. If you want to know how to access them message me through the album.
ReplyDeletehttps://picasaweb.google.com/114224116055024928868/GroupOfSevenAgawaCanyonLocations?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOCdoIzB3N6YJQ&feat=directlink
Jeff