The Spiritual Legacy of the Group of Seven

 

                                                              Nellie Lake -- AY Jackson 1933

Today the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, known as the spiritual home to the Group of Seven, has reminded us that this date May 7th, marks the  anniversary of the first exhibition of these painters in 1920 at what is now the Art Gallery of Ontario. Their work offered a shift from the conventions of European painting and celebrated the wild beauty of what we now know as Canada. 

There is a spiritual quality to these paintings that touches me deeply and we were fortunate while living in Northern Ontario to visit, on foot and in canoes, a number of the places where the artists went to sketch and paint together, and we camped at several spots We've also paddled into the lakes of Algonquin Park where the Group's artistic mentor, Tom Thomson, explored until his untimely death. 

While living in Sudbury I made a pitch to the Lands for Life symposium on Crown Land use for more protected area around Killarney Provincial Park that included a signficant stand of old growth red pine, and I did so on behalf of the Friends of Killarney. Each presenter had a striclly timed ten minutes so I used several Group of Seven images painted from within the park as I spoke, including the one above. While the Friends are a secular group, at the time I felt that this involvement was an extension of my role as a minister. Bye the way, we were somewhat successful, although more than a quarter century later there is still uncertainty.

I should note that despite their brilliance the Group of Seven rarely included any evidence of the Indigenous peoples of the land. There are now a host of Indigenous artists who celebrate the land and it's creatures and they are regularly featured at the McMichael. Among them is Christi Belcourt, one of our favourites, and we have one of her prints in our home (below). 

                                                            The Fish are Fasting -- Christi Belcourt

The Group of Seven was also a Boy's Club and while several of the artists admired the work of contemporary  Emily Carr she was never invited to join them, even though their were other male artists who were. Carr expressed a much deeper understanding of the connection between Indigenous peoples and the land. 

I wonder if there is a doctoral thesis or book that looks specifically at the spiritual and religious sensibilities of the Group of Seven artists and others who explored the forest and waters of this land? 

Lawren Harris was a theosophist and while he encouraged Emily Carr to join him in this mystical movement she remained an Anglican through her lifetime. David Milne, another favourite from that era, was brought up in the United Church and read his bible seriously. It's hard to imagine that many of these artists didn't have a deep spiritual connection to the land they depicted.

I've mentioned before that as a tween I met A.Y Jackson at the McMichael where he lived, shortly after it opened in 1965. To this day when we visit the gallery it feels as though we are "going to church", entering holy ground. 

The original Group of Seven Canadian landscape painters consisted of Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley. 

Additional members, A.J. Casson, Edwin Holgate, and LeMoine FitzGerald, joined later. 

Tom Thomson and Emily Carr were also significantly associated with the group, though they were not official members.