Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

I think of the Canadian artists known as the Group of Seven in the same way I think of the Hudson River School, the artists who romanticized the stunning iconic landscapes of the United States in the 19th Century. Think Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Cole.

The Group of Seven were also landscape painters, but working in the early 20th-century. They sought to create a distinct artistry, a Canadian ethos — not European, not American — whose allegiance belonged to the vast forests, rugged mountains, rolling prairies, muscular waterways and ocean borders that comprise Canada.

A gang of Toronto-based artists, they were, at least to my reading, insular and kind of snobby. But their work is amazing. Victoria B.C.-based artist Emily Carr painted the piece I’m showing here. She was never formally included in the Group of Seven, but she should have been. Despite losing her parents when she was a teen-ager, she found a way to study art in San Francisco, London and Paris, before returning to Victoria and bringing her skills to bear on the Pacific Northwest. Her brief biography (linked above) is worth a read.

I’m enjoying getting to know more about these artists. The image below, Jack Pine by artist Tom Thomson (whose work inspired the Group of Seven), is among the Canadian masterpieces and on display at the National Gallery of Canada, makes me want to go visit that museum and immerse myself in Canadian art. The way he captures the color of winter sky, is profoundly northern to me. There is no light quite like the sun on the low horizon at midday in the northern latitudes.

I’m taking the time to write about this because there’s a lot of Canada talk these days, and I thought it worth sharing something that might be new information for many Americans. Also, something entirely nonpolitical, non-hockey, non-beer, and non-maple-syrup Canadian. So next time someone wants to talk Canada with you, you’ll have another cool thing to share.

Enjoy!