Canadian Landscape by Radford Crawley, National Film Board of Canada
I have been following Canadian History Magazine since I finished the research for my upcoming book on the abandoned house series. Today, they posted this video from Canada’s National Film Board. Watching this video was like discovering buried treasure or a lost art horde; a horde containing the artistic process of a national treasure – A.Y. Jackson.
For many of us, the only way to try to understand the artist behind early 20th century work is to pore over their paintings hanging on museum and gallery walls or read their biographies. Those who studied in classes and workshops with the likes of Carmichael, Varley, Lismer and Jackson are mostly in their 70’s and 80’s or long gone, leaving subsequent generations to piece fragmented ideas together like in a game of broken telephone. The thought that their process would be preserved on film or video was far from the ubiquitous idea that it is today.
Except sometimes we get lucky.
This 1941 film is a documentary that follows A.Y. Jackson to Killarney and Quebec. It records canoe trips, the creation of sketches on bare birch panels to the studio paintings being created at the famous Studio Building.
If you are interested in art and the Canadian Group of Seven, you must watch this amazing and rare glimpse into the inspiration and process of one of our most iconic painters.
More documentaries on other members can be found on the NFB blog here.
Enjoy!
My grandfather studied with some of the Group of Seven artists – Lismer? Harris? – when he was at the Ontario College of Art (graduated 1933) but declined to say much about it when I asked him to tell me about it. I keenly regret that I don’t know anything more, but I had to respect his reticence.
In any case, thanks for the link to the NFB section looking at the different artists. I watched the Varley piece, and was much struck by the melancholy that came through. I’ve a special interest in the Girl in Red, as it appeared on the cover of Toronto Week magazine in 1971, with Dad and I posed just to the right of it as if walking past it in the gallery, Dad looking forward and 2 year old me on his shoulders, resting my head on his while looking at the camera. I’m told I wasn’t feeling very well at the time. My favourite photo!
I wonder why he didn’t talk about it?
One of my earliest teachers, Pat Fairhead, studied with Franklin Carmichael. She is a tremendously talented and adventurous painter herself. Clearly, the love of landscape rubbed off.
I’d love to see that cover! How wonderful your parents exposed you to art so young.
Thanks for the great comment, Steph! 🙂
What a valuable doc. Marvelous account on the artist process of creation from setting up the camp and the lone canoe ride. I’m more interested in it now because my son, just married, is on a camping trip with his new bride along the shore of Lake Superior. I wonder if anywhere near A.Y. J. painted. 🙂
I always wanted to spend more time on Superior. I never got north of Pancake Bay – only a few miles from the Montreal River – a known spot. I hope they enjoy it. Congrats to you and your son!
This is wonderful, I as many am a great fan of the Group of 7. Besides their great talent it is amazing just the logistics of hauling all your stuff into the great north or anywhere for that matter and produce the sketches before the final product. All though the film is done in a very serious manner, you can see they had fun with it too as in the card playing. They referred to him painting in the fall, I wonder if that was to beat the mosquitoes and black flies. When I was in public school in Burlington Ontario we had copies of their work on the wall in the hall ways. This planted some seeds in my mind for a love of Canada and their style of painting. Thanks for finding this gem of a film.
It is a gem! Thanks for your comment, Ralph.