Springfield artist presents on iconic Canadian ‘Group of Seven’

About 20 visitors came out to the Springfield Library on Saturday afternoon to view a presentation by Springfield artist Robert Carsten.

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2017-02-27 / Front Page Springfield artist presents on iconic Canadian ‘Group of Seven’ By TORY JONES toryb@eagletimes.com Springfield artist Robert Carsten presents the works and history of “The Group of Seven” to a crowd of about 20 on Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Springfield Library. — TORY JONES Springfield artist Robert Carsten presents the works and history of “The Group of Seven” to a crowd of about 20 on Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Springfield Library. — TORY JONES SPRINGFIELD — About 20 visitors came out to the Springfield Library on Saturday afternoon to view a presentation by Springfield artist Robert Carsten, and to learn more about a group of influential Canadian artists who worked for decades in the early part of the last century to paint true representations of their country’s rugged landscape and culture. “These guys went, against all odds, to all parts of Canada,” Carsten said. Carston presented the history and influences of the group in “Powerful Muses: The Group of Seven Artists,” on Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Springfield Library. The purpose of the free presentation was to help the group become more well-known in the U.S., Carsten said. The group of “plein air” artists often worked in the northern part of Ontario, on the shores of the Great Lakes, and in a Toronto studio, and also traveled extensively to fishing villages in the Canadian Maritimes, the central and western provinces, and north to the Arctic provinces to paint. They often had to hike, snowshoe or canoe to these remote locations. “Travel was difficult,” Carsten said. They also painted industrial images of the mining and oil towns, considered modern at the time, using color to beautify what some saw later as the polluted landscape of industrial cities. They painted images from the big wheat boom in the 1910s, immigrant housing, poorer areas, gas works, electric streetcars and telephone lines, sharp portraits, and expansive countryside across Canada. Their desire was to express the true, rugged Canadian outdoors as they saw it, not as it has been previously depicted in “quiet, pastoral” depictions of fishermen sitting along a bank, and sheep grazing the hills. “They did not feel this represented Canada in the turn of the century,” Carsten said. It was too much like a postcard — too easy. The city of Toronto, where the group was based, had industrial wealth in the early part of the century, “but it didn’t really have much culture at the time,” Carsten said. The “Group of Seven” and Tom Thomson, a younger colleague who became one of the country’s most well-known artists, had the circumstances fit together to become “the most famous artists Canada has ever produced,” Carston said. They did not use photos. Most of their paintings, hundreds of “little studies,” were done on 8-by 10-inch birch panels to take back to their larger studio spaces and create paintings on larger canvases. The group included Lawren Harris, heir to the Massey-Harris farm equipment fortune, who painted in a three-piece suit and built a studio his colleagues could rent space in. Harris also lived in Hanover, New Hampshire with his second wife from 1934 to 1936, as the unofficial artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College, Carsten said. Harris also went on to found the Canadian Federation of Artists (CFA), which now includes more than 2,500 members. Others in the Group of Seven included J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson, Fred Varley, Franklin Carmichael, and Frank Johnston. Thomson was not a part of the Group of Seven, but worked with them. He did not have any training, but moved to Toronto after a “jilted proposal” to a young lady in Seattle, and took a job at the commercial firm where other artists were working. The group liked him and took him on and began teaching him. He eventually began using color in a way some liken to Van Gogh, becoming one of the best-known colorists. “He was not a fair weather painter. He painted storms,” Carsten said. Thomson would work outdoors in storm weather, became known for his works depicting clouds and skies, and also followed lumber drives. As he developed his work, “he started out as their student, and wound up as their teacher,” Carsten said. One of his works, a painting of a birch stand with cathedral lighting, sold for $500, a high price for the time. Another set of paintings, each showing a jack pine with a mountain range in the background, became iconic representations of Canada in the art world. He lived well, but never became wealthy. He is a legend, both for his work and for the mystery surrounding his death by drowning in 1917, before he reached the age of 40. Some say he was murdered, all according to Carsten. In later years, as some of the artists moved away to teach or pursue other careers in the late 1920s and early 1930s, younger artists including A. J. Casson, Edwin Holgate and LeMoine Fitzgerald joined the group, which disbanded in 1932. In their last exhibition, the group invited 23 other artists, eventually founding the Canadian Painters’ Society. Carsten lives in Springfield. He is an award-winning artist, instructor, national art exhibition and awards juror, demonstrator, and panelist. For more information on this and other Springfield Library events, call (802) 885-3108 or visit http://www.springfieldtownlibrary.org.