A. Y. Jackson And Nationalism

A. Y. Jackson is the one of the greatest painters in Canadian History. He painted the landscape of Canada on the canvas with new style. His new style was crude and eliminated the details of objects. With his group members he traveled all over the country sketching out Canadian landscape and endeavored to depict the nature as it is. It was innovative but not appealed to the public because people assumed that anything European is automatically superior to anything Canadian and Impressionism was commonly known to public thus conservative people didnÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їt accept his innovative paintings which filled up with thick and short brushstrokes and brown dominated colors. But Jackson and the group members kept their mindset. They insisted European painting style is not suitable to depict the Canadian nature as rough and muddy rather than shiny and gold color fulfilled atmosphere with cow on the pasture field.

Jackson was influenced by Impressionism and worked on improving his own way of painting style to depict the nature of Canada. He was born in Montreal and studied in Paris for few years. Once came back from Paris, he painted Edge of the Maple wood. In the painting he depicted the shadow of the trees and blue sky with cloudy atmosphere. These factors show that he was influenced by French Impressionism(Smith). But these factors are not found from his later works which were rather be muddier and brown tone ground with desolate atmosphere as we can see in A Lake, Autumn, Georgian Bay. This expression was one of his various ways of depicting the landscape. His color of painting was varied depending on the seasons and area. He wanted to depict the nature as the way Canadians perceive. His canvas was filled with crude color of white snow in winter, and if autumn comes he painted with vivid red which canÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їt be found in European style of art. Horatio WalkerÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs The First Gleam of Dawn (1900) is one of the typical Impressionism influenced work. It depicted shepherd with cows in the gold color fulfilled atmosphere with delicate details of the vast field and sky. The light reflection on cowsÐ'ÐŽÐ'Ї back looks attractive but Jackson never thought that way. He said that

Homes were decorated with dark, somber paintings-pictures of old Dutch windmills and cows at pasture. Ð'ÐŽÐ'®We donÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їt own a Canadian paintingÐ'ÐŽÐ'Ї was a common boast among wealthy art collectors. Canadian artists represented Canada as if it were Europe. The art in Canada meant a cow or a windmill. They were grey, mild, inoffensive things, and when surrounded by heavy gold frames, covered with plate glass and a spotlight placed over them, they looked expensive the strength of cows working on the vast field. (Hunkin 22)

His works were welcomed by young passionate artists and the group members but ignored by conservative people.

A Toronto based artist by the name of J.E.H. MacDonald wrote to Jackson inquiring about a painting he had seen at a Toronto showing several years earlier. It was Jackson's The Edge of Maple Wood. In his letter, MacDonald said that if Jackson still owned the painting, another Toronto artist by the name of Lawren Harris wished to purchase it. This letter and purchase provided the link between Jackson and the Toronto based artists. They continued correspondence and debate over the Canadian art situation, and soon Jackson began spending extended periods of time in Toronto. (Reid)

While he was in Toronto, he had influenced Lismer and other group members. In LismerÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs early painting such as Road through the Bush, he tried to capture the shifting light and color but it didnÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їt last long because AY noted that Ð'ÐŽÐ'oImpressionism is too involved a technique to express the movement and complex of our northern wildÐ'ÐŽÐ'± (Smith). Jackson influenced some passionate artists but not the public. They had rather taken the critical position on the groupÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їs work. When their work was sent to England in 1910, it was critically scorned by critics. An English critic wrote Ð'ÐŽÐ'oAt present the observation is scorned, but the more immutable essence of each scene is crushed out by a foreign-begotten techniqueÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦Ð'ÐŽÐ'± (Reid 23). Not just from outside of Canada H.F. Gadsby, a Toronto Sart write, sneers at this new movement when Jackson exhibits his Georgian Bay sketches. Ð'ÐŽÐ'oAll their pictures look pretty much alike, the net result being more like a garble or gob of porridge than a work of art.Ð'ÐŽÐ'Ї He names them Ð'ÐŽÐ'®The Hot Mush SchoolÐ'ÐŽÐ'± (Reid 44). Despite