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Arthur Lismer 1885 - 1969 Canadian oil on canvas Winter Landscape 18 x 20 inches 45.7 x 50.8 centimeters signed and dated 1917 Provenance:Private Collection, Quebec In the early work of the artists who would become the Group of Seven, paintings that demonstrate an Impressionist influence are readily found. For Arthur Lismer, the important Halifax Harbour, Time of War (in the Dalhousie Art Gallery Permanent Collection) shows the influence of this style. While we prefer to consider the style of the Group of Seven as completely unique, forgetting the link to the Impressionists in our patriotic dialogue surrounding the Group and their allegiance to the Canadian wilderness, their work is a logical evolution out of Impressionism as it was filtered through the realities of life in a young colonial nation and shaped by its people and places. Winter Landscape sits easily alongside works by noted Canadian Impressionists such as William Clapp, Helen McNicoll, James Wilson Morrice and Mabel May. Impressionism's concerns are with light and its effect on what it touches. Winter Landscape is infused with a vivid brightness that brings the colour of the scene to its highest intensity. The snow in the foreground, swept with tracks and rutted as it follows the line of the rock, is a delicate combination of pink and blue and white. The vertical cliff contrasts with the snow nicely in both colour and in the direction of the brushwork used to depict it. Impressionism pioneered the technique of short brush-strokes running in opposite directions and abrupt shifts of colour, a dramatic change from previous styles wherein colours were built up in smooth layers. The colour of Lismer's cliffs deepens the blues, greens and pinks of the snow and sky, and links the two areas of the foreground together. The shadow below the cliffs is rich and appealing - light making colour known to us through shade. The trees with their stark white trunks echo the colour of the snow further and force the light to dance around in the middle ground. The scene is very much an of-the-moment work, again characteristic of the Impressionist method in its dappled effect and overall consistency of treatment. Lismer visited Algonquin Park as early as the spring of 1914, becoming immediately enamoured with the scenery there. That fall he would return to visit the region dressed in autumn colour, and thus begin his odyssey throughout the Canadian land, painting works such as Winter Landscape. Soon after, he would visit Georgian Bay where his works would change somewhat, becoming more concerned with the features of the natural world - the rocks, the trees, the water - than with the light which illuminated them. His impressionist works such as this are prized for their delicate beauty. The colour of the sky, with its many shades of blue and repeated pinks of the forest, would dominate the scene if not balanced by the intensity of the snow below. In looking at this fine, carefree work, it is interesting to reflect on its date. In 1917, Canada was fully involved in World War I; Harris and Jackson had enlisted, Harris was in training and Jackson had been wounded and discharged, soon to be involved in the War Memorials project in France. Varley was overseas, and Tom Thomson would drown that summer on Canoe Lake. Lismer was in Halifax heading the Victoria School of Art and Design and working with the Nova Scotia Museum of Arts. After the explosion of 1917, the school would be used to accommodate the coffins of those killed in the resulting fire. It was a time of tremendous upheaval, yet Lismer finds a respite in the delightful sunlit wilderness in Winter Landscape.