Defiant Spirits

Beginning in 1912, Defiant Spirits traces the artistic development of Tom Thomson and the future members of the Group of Seven, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley, over a dozen years in Canadian history. Working in an eclectic and sometimes controversial blend of modernist styles, they produced what an English critic celebrated in the 1920s as the “most vital group of paintings” of the 20th century. Inspired by Cézanne, Van Gogh and other modernist artists, they tried to interpret the Ontario landscape in light of the strategies of the international avant-garde. Based after 1914 in the purpose-built Studio Building for Canadian Art, the young artists embarked on what Lawren Harris called “an all-engrossing adventure”: travelling north into the anadian Shield and forging a style of painting appropriate to what they regarded as the unique features of Canada’s northern landscape.

Rigorously researched and drawn from archival documents and letters, Defiant Spirits constitutes a “group biography,” reconstructing the men’s aspirations, frustrations and achievements. It details not only the lives of Tom Thomson and the members of the Group of Seven but also the political and social history of Canada

Beginning in 1912, Defiant Spirits traces the artistic development of Tom Thomson and the future members of the Group of Seven, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley, over a dozen years in Canadian history. Working in an eclectic and sometimes controversial blend of modernist styles, they produced what an English critic celebrated in the 1920s as the “most vital group of paintings” of the 20th century. Inspired by Cézanne, Van Gogh and other modernist artists, they tried to interpret the Ontario landscape in light of the strategies of the international avant-garde. Based after 1914 in the purpose-built Studio Building for Canadian Art, the young artists embarked on what Lawren Harris called “an all-engrossing adventure”: travelling north into the anadian Shield and forging a style of painting appropriate to what they regarded as the unique features of Canada’s northern landscape.

Rigorously researched and drawn from archival documents and letters, Defiant Spirits constitutes a “group biography,” reconstructing the men’s aspirations, frustrations and achievements. It details not only the lives of Tom Thomson and the members of the Group of Seven but also the political and social history of Canada

Acknowledgements ix
Book I
1 A Wild Deserted Spot
2 This Wealthy Promised Land
3 Ein Toronto Realist
4 Eerie Wildernesses
5 Life on the Mississagi
6 Wild Men of the North
7 The Infanticist School
8 The Happy Isles
9 Rites of Paysage
10 The Young School
Book II
1 Men with Good Red Blood in Their Veins
2 The Great Explosion
3 White Feathers and Tangled Gardens
4 The Line of Beauty
5 Imperishable Splendour
6 Shades of Grey
7 The Vortex of War
8 The Dweller on the Threshold
9 The Great Konodian Army
Book III
1 The Spirit of Young Canada
2 A Septenary Fatality
3 Are These New Canadian Painters Crazy?
4 Multiples of Ugliness
5 By the Shining Big-Sea-Water
6 Gypsies, Lepers and Freaks
7 Wembley
Epilogue: The End of the Trail
Notes
Selected bibliography
Index