Page 60 - Studio International - March 1968

Painting in world of international art. artist'; while in the 1960s among my own friends
thenceforth to the fragmented and permissive
are some of the first generation who have been able
Nine tenths of Mr Russell Harper's book* is a
Canada narrative of what happened up to this explosion. to make the case for living as artists in Alberta. All
these places now have their Post-painterly Abstrac-
It is sponsored by the Canada Council and apart tionists among the others. Mr Harper has had to
from being a project of the Centennial celebrations display panoramically and in close-up the entire
it is very well timed. This is the moment when history of the art of a country, from nothing,
Canadian painting, emerged from its nationalist through isolated regional developments to the
phase, justifies a survey of the history that has led condition of a widespread and sophisticated com-
to contemporary achievement overdue for wider ponent of a modern society. He has done it with a
attention. remarkable and engaging ability to interest one in
The final chapter which summarizes the activity almost anything, including the mediocre. He has
Review article of the twenty years since the Refus global is un- inexhaustible affection for painters, professionals
by William Townsend fortunately the least satisfactory part of the book. and amateurs, army officers who imported the
This is disappointing because no-one has a wider traditions of Paul Sandby learned at Woolwich,
acquaintance with current Canadian painting than locals who painted ex-votos, outsiders who did
Mr Harper. 'By the end of the fifties radicalism some other job and painted on the quiet, even
Painting began in Canada almost exactly three would seem to have triumphed in Canada'—it is those academics who later hogged the local com-
hundred years ago as a trickle of the mainstream of almost as though he is lamenting this—'no national missions, defying competition with ruthless adver-
European art. Among the first recorded paintings style has emerged' and, in realizing that a search tising of medals won at international salons.
are those of Frère Luc, a pupil of Vouet, who knew for this is no longer opportune, he seems uncertain Restricting himself to painting Mr Harper denies
Claude and had worked with Poussin. The first in discriminating between artists deserving to be himself the opportunity of giving full weight to the
school for the arts and crafts was established in taken seriously anywhere and those following paths minor Baroque school that flourished in French
1668 in Quebec. If some claim could be made that of local interest. Vigorous activity concentrated in Canada and survived almost into this century. Set
Canadian art sprang fully armed, a community of several distinct parts of the country suggests to off by the visit of Vouet's pupil, its tradition of
two thousand persons, however steadily multiply- Mr Harper that 'one can reasonably discuss painting was sufficiently replenished by French-
ing, could not by its own resources maintain this Canadian artists by means of these regional foci'. born or Paris-trained artists to reflect the phases of
kind of presence. It was in fact not until 'an But they are too mixed up for that now. However European art through rococo to neo-classic and
explosion of thought shook French-speaking necessary in tracing origins there hardly seems any romantic, while sustained with sufficient momen-
Canada during the 1940s and 1950s' that it was longer a case for egalitarian treatment as between tum by native artists and craftsmen to remain a
possible for Canadian painters to assert their right the Provinces in matters of painting. At least it genuinely creative movement for two hundred
to be working near the centre of action. will have very little point for outsiders. years. But its native strength lay more in its archi-
The 'Art in Our Day' exhibition in Montreal in That said, there is nothing but admiration for the tecture, sculpture and church decoration; it
1939 was for Canada what the Armory Show had way in which Mr Harper has planned his chronicle, touched the whole of life; it had style. Of the works
been for New York or Roger Fry's Post-impression- relating the artists to the social, political and geo- produced before Confederation it provided almost
ist exhibitions for London; its success enabled graphical contexts in which they worked, all of all that would affect us now with more than curi-
John Lyman and Alfred Pellan to engineer the which have been exceedingly diversified through- osity or nostalgia. Some of the painters are indeed
belated triumph of the Ecole de Paris, creating the out the whole of his period. In consequence remarkable but, on the ground in Quebec, in front
armament that made possible a breakthrough parallel developments have been bewilderingly out of the church sculpture, one can still be moved by
into the contemporary situation. The manifesto of phase. In Montreal before 1800 there were
written by Paul-Emile Borduas, the Refus global of already plenty of professional painters, very respect- *Painting in Canada: a history by J. Russell Harper,
1948, was the signal. Borduas and Riopelle became able artists and respected men, yet in Toronto as 446 pp. with 378 illus. (of which 72 in colour),
early contributors to North American Abstract late as 1861 a painter could say 'Toronto is too University of Toronto, distributed in the U.K. by
Expressionism and Canadian painters belonged new and too poor to support an ornamental Oxford University Press.