A
Governor General’s Award–winning author recounts the turbulent years
during which a group of young Canadian painters went from obscurity
to international renown.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.Sumptuously illustrated, 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 during a time when art exhibitions were
venues for debates about Canadian national identity and cultural
worth.
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