Group of Seven - Landscape artists - 1920's

The Group of Seven

A group of Canadian based painters who proclaimed themselves 'modern artists'. They were famous for their bright colours and their depiction of the Canadian landscape. The original group included; Franklin Carmichael,Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. Macdonald and F.H. Varley. They became friends during 1911 in Toronto, Canada. Tom Thomson, another commercial artist of this time was key to this group although he didn't become a member he led them to paint the outdoors and specifically the rugged Ontario landscape for which many of them became famous for.

Lawren Harris

Franklin Carmichael

Arthur Lismer

Frank Johnston

They shifted from the commonplace imitation of nature and pushed towards the expression of their feelings for their subject. They simplified the colours and layout of their paintings and developed their own stylised approaches. Harris was the outlier who stripped is paintings to minimal form and became the one of the first Canadian artists to turn to abstraction.

Influence on my work:
I found this an interesting group of artists, although for me they don't have the looseness of brush strokes that I favour. However I do like their use of colour and its interesting to see the artists forging into a new style of painting for this time period. I greatly admired how they grouped together and formed a community of like minded artists, working and learning from each other to develop their styles. I lean towards Lawren Harris who was bold with his colours and was indeed heading towards abstraction.

Reference:
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/group-of-seven/
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/canadian/The-Group-of-Seven.html
http://www.groupofsevenart.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists)