Group of Seven on Display in Ottawa

 

 

 

 

Lawren Harris, Winter Morning, 1924

Art is an inherently creative act, but it tends to thrive when others gravitate to the same styles and genres. When a particular style is new, it’s not uncommon for it to get bad or ho-hum reviews. But when it attracts a critical mass of the like-minded, a veritable "school" of art is born.

 

Canada gained the right to self-governance in 1867, but it remained in Great Britain’s shadow until the passage of the Canada Act in 1982. Think upon that; you could make the case that Canada has only been fully independent for 43 years. No wonder the Canadian “identity” has been much discussed for much longer. What does this have to do with art?

 

It would be ethnocentric to say there was no Canadian art before (take your pick) 1867 or 1982–First Nations people such as the Inuit and other northern peoples, Indians, and the Métis had rich traditions–but insofar as formal painting went, much of what was considered “fine” art was European, especially British, in style and content.

 

The first important school of painters to paint in a distinctly Canadian style was the Group of Seven: Frank Carmichael (1890-1945), Lawren Harris (1885-1970), A. Y. Jackson (1882-1974), Frank Johnston (1888-1949), Arthur Lismer (1885-1969), J.E.H. MacDonald (1881-1969), and Frederick Varley (1881-1969). But what defined a Euro-Canadian? No one could quite agree, hence the Group of Seven got tepid reviews from the first exhibitions of their work. World War One didn’t help matters as Canadians fought under the Union Jack.

 

 

 

Tom Thompson, The Pool, 1915

 

 

Nevertheless, the Group of Seven came together shortly after the war.  They took their cue from Tom Thompson (1877-1917) who died just before the Seven formed but he was friends with several of the painters. Several of Thompson’s  canvases inspired the Seven to the degree that Thompson is often cited as the eighth member of the Group of Seven. In particular, Thompson suggested that geography defined Canadians. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Group of Seven explored how Canadians were shaped by its vastness. It is, after all, the world’s second largest nation (after Russia), yet a considerable majority of its land is Sub-Arctic, muskeg, and Arctic–filled with resources such as fresh water, oil, animals, and minerals, but relatively inhospitable. That’s why approximately 90 percent of its population lives within 100 miles of the U.S. border.

 

The Group of Seven were mainly considered landscape painters. They seldom painted people because of the remoteness of its northern reaches. I will offer a few samples of the artists below, but two final codicils. Seven didn’t always mean seven literally. Thompson is one example of that, but at least four other painters were invited into the group. If I tell you that Jackson’s first name is Alexander and MacDonald’s was James, you’ll also see that it was a fraternity. Yet the wonderful British Columbia painter Emily Carr (1871-1941) was considered a peer.   

 

Let’s take a look. If you get a chance to visit Ottawa, be sure to dip into its National Gallery of Art!

 

Frank Carmichael, The Hilltop 1921

Harris, Lake Superior North Shore, 1926. Steve Martin collects his work.

 

 

Harris, Sun on Lake Superior, 1924. Harris is also my favorite of the 7.

A. Y Jackson, 1924. Note the human figures in this one.

J. E. H. MacDonald, March Morning, Northland

 

F. H. Varley, Stormy Weather Georgian Bay 1921

 

Emily Carr, British Columbia Totems, 1930 (My 2nd favorite of the Seven)

 

 

 

Carr, Graveyard Entrance, 1912   

You might notice that some of the landscapes are similar. I like Harris because he went to the Arctic North and captured spectacular landscapes, and Carr because she worked in British Columbia and likewise recorded different subjects. 

 

The Group of Seven (sort of) disbanded upon MacDonald's death in 1931. However, several of the Seven took part in the Canadian Group that formed in 1933 and initially had 28 members with more to come. Here are a few other paintings and, I suspect, they simply "look" Canadian. Where else, except northern Maine or Wisconsin could they be with all semblance of human activity immersed and at the mercy of Mother Nature? Such was the impact of the Group of Seven. 

 

Clarence Gagnon Village in the Laurentians (PQ)

 

 

 

Kathleen Moir Morris, Byward Market, Ottawa

 

 

Marc Aurele Fortin, Saint Urban in Winter, 1942

 

 

Yvonne Housser Rossport Lake Superior, 1929

 

Harris, Halifax

 

 

 

 

Rob Weir

The Names: Fascinating and Frustrating

 

 

 

The Names (2025)

By Florence Knapp

Viking/Penguin, 328 pages.

★★★

 

Perhaps you’ve heard of the “butterfly effect,” which avers that the smallest variable introduced into an experiment or scenario can dramatically alter the outcome. The movie Run, Lola, Run is a brilliant depiction of it. Novelist Florence Knapp plays with that butterfly premise in The Names.

 

The book opens as Cora, a former ballet dancer, and Gordon Atkin have just had a son. In Gordon’s mind there is only one choice for his name: Gordon. His family has had a Gordon for as many generations as anyone can remember. Cora doesn’t think it fits and prefers Julian, but her husband orders her to go to the city hall and register the name Gordon. Maia, the baby’s sister, has taken to calling her brother Bear and the name is growing on mom. When Cora actually registers the name Bear, Gordon goes ballistic. Although he is a skilled doctor respected by his patients, he’s a bully and an abuser who pummels Cora for defying his will. She gets it again when she goes to city hall and changes it to Julian. This time, something very serious happens to a neighbor.

 

What would have happened had the boy been named Bear? Or Julian? Knapp imagines differing scenarios via snapshots in six different years: 1987,1994, 2001, 2008, 2015, and 2022. Her stories are sometimes discrete and sometimes continuous. Remember, that a small change can lead to very different outcomes. Our supporting characters–father Gordon, Cora, her mother Sílbhe, Maia (“Bees”), and Cora’s friend Mehri–are retained, but depending upon the timeline they have different lives, friends, and personalities. 

 

Gordon 2 bears some of his father’s traits, though he is better at recognizing the effects of internalized anger. Nevertheless, Gordon 2 is mostly a reactive character, as if his father is a magnet and he a flimsy piece of metal. The externals of Gordon I change according to which timeline is at play. It’s hard to be specific without venturing into spoilers. It would be fair to say, though, that Gordon 2 has the least interesting life.

 

Bear is exactly as young Maia envisioned him. Most people like him and he ends up marrying his longtime squeeze Lily, though Bear’s quiet, cuddly charm presents challenges. As his name suggests, Bear loves nature. Julian, by contrast, moves to Ireland and develops a dislike for the English and crass commercialism. One of his grandmother’s former lovers, teaches Julian silversmithing and he goes on to become a skilled jeweler. He will wed Orla, also an artist.

 

It is often in the supporting cast where the butterfly changes manifest most dramatically. That’s because Knapp has something up her sleeve. We get more background on Sílbhe, who was once a hippie, and has had an (ahem!) adventurous love life. Maia is a lesbian who, in 2008 is married to a woman named Charlotte, but this changes. Mehri is Cora’s best friend, but her personality is fungible. Characters we’ve not previously met appear in different scenarios. 

 

As the novel wends its way through time, Knapp springs a surprise. Most of the characters appear in the same timeframe, as if there were a merging of the various Gordon I’s, Gordon 2’s, Bears, Julians, and Coras. This flight into the multiverse is common in graphic novels, but not every reader is going to applaud Knapp’s use of the technique. Frankly, I have mixed feeling about it. On one hand, it’s a bold shift; on the other, it’s often hard to figure out exactly what’s happening to whom and, if I might, who “whom” is at a given moment. Nor is it entirely clear what we are to conclude about Knapp’s foray into trifurcation. Any of a number of possibilities emerge. Is there one narrative with the same son switching identities? Are three parallel universes in play? It’s interesting to contemplate what another you would be like in a different universe, but it’s ultimately a dead end as we have objective evidence that a multiverse exists.  Knapp selected her time periods carefully: 1987 was the end of stagflation,1994 the year the first Web browser appeared, 2001 Y2K and terrorist attacks, 2008 the end of the Great Recession, 2015 the legalization of same-sex marriages, and 2022 the next page of her seven-year cycles. (Are we reading a postmodernist 7 Up?)

 

We can but speculate. I found The Names both a fascinating and perplexing read.

 

Rob Weir