>>REVIEW
POETRY AND PERCEPTION:
JAMES WILSON MORRICE AND TOM THOMSON
National Gallery of Canada
Runs until December 10
Nickle Arts Museum (U of C)
Canadian painters Tom Thomson (1877-1917) and James Wilson Morrice (1865-1924) are known as two of the outstanding colourists of their time. Now, in an exhibition at the Nickle Arts Museum entitled Poetry and Perception, we can see how these two icons of Canadian art left behind a legacy that ranges from the banks of the River Seine in France to the lakes that dot Algonquin Park in Ontario.
Organized by the National Gallery of Canada, the exhibition features 20 paintings from each artist. Tucked into the small gallery at the back of the Nickle, it’s a reminder of the exceptional talent pool of Canadian artists who have interpreted landscapes in a masterly fashion.
For many, Thomson is not only an important painter in the annals of Canadian art, but also a mythological figure whose legend grew through his close association with members of the Group of Seven. Known for his brooding landscapes of Algonquin Park, Thomson first visited the area in 1912 and later became a guide and fire ranger there. It was also where he met his death in 1917, during a trip to Canoe Lake. How he died is still a mystery and, while it was initially determined that he had drowned, doubt has since been cast on that explanation.
Although his life was cut short, Thomson left behind an impressive collection of paintings, such as Frost-Laden Cedars, included in this exhibition. Painted just one year before he died, its thick brush strokes re-create fresh snow clinging to the boughs of the trees. It’s iconographic imagery of Canada’s landscape and pure Thomson.
Where the rough beauty of Algonquin was Thomson’s muse, for Morrice, a Canadian who left the country to live in France, it was the considerable charms of Paris. From jugglers captivating a crowd on the streets, to Parisians floating down the Seine on a barge, Morrice’s impressionistic paintings depict scenes that he savoured like a good bottle of Bordeaux.
Passion is the quality that connected these two masters – Thomson was in love with Canada’s vast wilderness, while Morrice was seduced by the leisurely pursuits available to an expatriate living in Europe. And that passion illuminates their canvases. |
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