This year marks the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Group of Seven. The Canadian paint team’s legacy on the Northern Ontario art scene is undeniable. As such, it is the subject of the Art Gallery of Algoma’s latest exhibition
As the name suggests, the Group of Seven was a group of seven Canadian landscape painters, active between 1920 to 1922. Much of their work was inspired by the natural scenery found in the Algoma Region. In turn, their paintings influenced countless local artists.
For example, A.Y. Jackson, one of the members of the Group, owned a property on the shores of Lake Superior near Wawa where he took inspiration from the landscape.
Because of the Group’s involvement in the region, the Art Gallery of Algoma is hosting an online exhibit to celebrate 100 years since its formation.
“It’s a twofold exhibition,” said Jasmina Javanovic, Executive Director of the Art Gallery. “The first is a selection of many artists in our collection [including works by the Group of Seven] about landscapes and Canada. Then there’s a place to submit your own submissions.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibit – called Algoma Through an Artist’s Eye – will be held virtually on ArtGalleryOfAlgoma.com.
The exhibit hosts dozens of works of art inspired by Algoma. The influence of the Group of Seven is clear in many of these pieces. “I think there are a lot of local artists that are inspired by the Group of Seven and who follow in their tradition and continue to paint the landscape.”
In the same way that the Group of Seven travelled to Algoma for inspiration in the 20th Century, artists from all around the country today come here for the same reason. Their works are equally featured in the exhibit.
Those visiting the Art Gallery can recognize the Group’s influence in landscape paintings with large brush strokes and bright colours. Although each member had their own individual style, all of their paintings are a sort of love letter to Canada’s natural environment. “Even though they followed similar styles, they all had their own specific style and differences,” said Javanovic.
“Overall, it would be the emotions and brushstroke that reflect their feelings about the landscapes they are painting.”
Sault Ste. Marie was especially influenced by the Group: member A.J. Casson opened the Art Gallery in September of 1980.
In addition to the Algoma Region, the Group of Seven also had a major influence on the art world in Canada as a whole.
The art history book Beyond Wilderness posits that the Group of Seven helped solidify the Canadian identity and separate us from Europe and the United States. “In the first half of the 20th Century, art in Canada was focused on a wilderness painting movement,” reads the textbook.
The Group of Seven “set about unmaking and remaking prevailing conventions of landscape painting for the purpose of producing a national art . . . For them, Canadianness was defined by way of northerness and wilderness. The nation, in their view, should shed its Eurocentrism and embrace its northern identity. Wilderness was a source of pride.”
Despite this, the individual artists were harshly criticized for their use of realism before they came together. The art style was common in Europe but was yet to be accepted here.
“In Canada, art critics appreciated realism (which they’re not, their influence was impressionism). When they started off, they were very seriously criticized by everybody. They were not accepted. They had lots of difficulties to break into the way they painted,” said Jovanovic.
“That’s why they formed the group: because they experienced criticism.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
