Wild Canada Brought to Beijing

No long queues of visitors waiting anxiously for tickets. No flood of flattering reports in local newspapers.

Beijingers have greeted a Canadian landscape painting exhibition in a quiet manner compared to the craze for tickets when Spanish painter Salvador Dali's show came last summer.

But the exhibition "Terre Sauvage: Canadian Landscape Painting and the Group of Seven," now showing at the Yanhuang Art Museum until May 20, is by no means lightweight.

All 73 oil paintings on display were done by a group of important artists active during an influential modern art movement in Canada early last century.

The artists include Tom Thomson (1877-1917), Lawren S. Harris (1885-1970), Alexander Y. Jackson (1882-1974), Franklin Carmichael (1890-1945), Francis H. Johnston (1888-1949), Arthur Lismer (1885-1969), James E. H. MacDonald (1873-1932), and Frederic H. Varley (1881-1969).

The works portray the chilly scenes typical of the North American country, which borders the Arctic, with particular interest in mountains, forests and lakes.

A relaxed stroll in the quiet, comfortable exhibition halls bring you into a tranquil world shown by the brushes of the Canadian artists.

Yet, behind the tranquility of the pictures, careful viewers will sense the heart beat of nationalist artists who were passionately striving to create a Canadian expression.

"The paintings by this group of artists are like the soul of Canada," Pierre Theberge, director of the National Gallery of Canada, said after the opening of the exhibition in Beijing last week. Theberge's gallery and the China International Exhibition Agency are co-organizers of the exhibition, which will travel to Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in the next few months.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of artists painted northern Canadian landscapes to reveal to their fellow citizens and to the world at large the spirit of a new nation in the making.

The nascent group was dispersed by World War I and Tom Thomson, a key figure in interpreting and introducing northern landscapes to his fellow painters, drowned in 1917.

But soon, in 1920, the other seven artists reunited in Toronto and formed the Group of Seven, a school of art that opened a Canadian chapter in world art history.

The artists were inspired by a common ideal: To realize an art truely expressive of Canada and its people. "They were trying to invent a new language for Canadian art, which used to be dominated by European classic paintings," Theberge said.

They believed art had an essential role to play in the growth and understanding of a national identity and that the Canadian environment had a determining influence on the national character.

Artists must probe the landscape to understand the Canadian psyche and thus realize an art that reflects both.

Over a period of two decades, the artists explored almost the full breadth of Canada, from northern Ontario, the lower Saint Lawrence River and Atlantic coast, to the Rocky Mountains and the Arctic. On their travels they sketched on small panels, painting larger canvases in their studios.

The first naturalistic depictions of the landscape were followed by a more decorative treatment of its forms, then by a broader rhythm and more plastic form, and finally a symbolic and austere spiritual expression.

Among the most conspicuous works in the exhibition are Jackson's "Terre Sauvage" (1913) and Harris' "Lake Superior" (1928).

"Terre Sauvage" is probably the most acclaimed masterpiece by the Group of Seven. Portraying the far-stretching primitive land of Canada under exaggerated heavy clouds, the painting leads viewers to think over the grandeur of the country and the prosperous future of an independent nation.

"Lake Superior," however, goes to the extreme of symbolism, reminiscent of an austere spiritual world. A few naked trees and trunks stand lonely on bold mountains beside the lake. With few clouds, the sky and lake merge into a mysterious blue space that dominates the whole picture.

"Though a lot of the paintings were created almost a century ago and are in relatively traditional styles in the eyes of viewers today, there are freshening elements in them, for example, a deep concern with the relationship between man and nature," said Sun Weimin, an oil painter and vice-president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

"The works are very instructive for some contemporary Chinese artists who seek 'individuality' at the cost of neglecting real life and the environment around them," Sun said.

"The paintings, however, are not very prominent in their use of colour and light. And they pay too much attention to structure rather than freely expressing feelings," Sun criticized.

The Group of Seven held almost annual exhibitions throughout the 1920s and supported numerous other independent artists from across Canada. In 1933 they expanded to form a larger national organization.

This is the first major exhibition of the Group of Seven's art in China since a 1975 Canadian landscape painting show in Beijing and Shanghai, which included works by some of the members.

(www.chindaily.com.cn)

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