A catalyst for the formation of the Group of Seven, Tom Thompson died in 1917 at Canoe Lake. We continue to be moved by his oil paintings today.
Writing about Thompson, the younger artist David Milne observed: "Varley and Lismer pines are pretty conventional pines, well done but quite familiar ... you admire their proficiency, that's all. But with Thomson's trees, it's different. You can't be indifferent. These few patches with knotted strings are powerful: there was strong emotion behind their making and they stir the same now."
Milne notes, too, how Thompson transcended the Group's inclination toward decorative patterning - at least as we see it in their larger finished works.
"A great point in Thomson's favour is this, his lack of perfection," Milne writes. "I am wary of craftsmanship. It is nothing in itself, neither emotion nor creation. I rather think it would have been wiser to have taken your 10 most prominent Canadians and sunk them in Canoe Lake - and saved Tom Thomson."
I read the above in the Globe and Mail art section. It makes one wonder if artists need to paint outside - plein air - to capture in their paintings the feelings nature evokes within them. .
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