Group of Seven revisits School of Night

My first approach to this inspiring piece by Turner left me spinning in deep thought about such ideas as balancing the universe with a feather. There is inherent in much of the thought eminating from these brilliant minds that validates much of transcendalist beliefs that we see in writers like Emerson, and painters like A.Y. Jackson. A.Y., was a member of Canada's most famous artistic movement called the Group of Seven. This group of seven artists from the city of Toronto gave to Canadians their contemporary ideas of what is to be them. That is, they defined their idenity based upon the images that this men produced of the landscape that they had come to inhabit. These images speak to something that is grander, something aspect of how amazing alone a person can be in the expansive landscapes of the physical world. The colours and patterns by the way in which they shaped their images clearly pointed towards the lack of uniformity in each person's view and contributions to the world. (The first of the two pictures is Tom Thompson's Jack Pine, the second A.Y. Jackson's Sauvage Terre) The group themselves met far outside of the "civilized" and understood places of people. The majority of their work was done in distant localities in the northern and central regions of the fledgling country. While there was a clear lack of modern day scienctists among them (clearly different from the School of Night), somewhere in the murky places they met this small band of men changed the universe for many Canadians. A group of seven individuals changed perceptions, and forged identities. This idea of a few brilliant minds, meeting, and connecting with the greater conscious to bring about a great understanding of the human condition to all of us, I find fascinating.

"It's probably hard for anyone looking at my landscapes today to realize that I was once regarded as a rebel, a dangerous influence; that I've been told I was on the verge of insanity, that my painting was nothing but meaningless daubs. Lawren Harris, the man most responsible for drawing the Group of Seven together, was accused of something perilously close to treason – his paintings, said his severest critics, were discouraging immigration." (A. Y. Jackson)