Logs on the Gatineau
Artist
J.E.H. MacDonald
(Canadian, 1873 - 1932)
Date1915
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions87.4 x 115.3 cm
Credit LineThe Mendel Art Gallery Collection at Remai Modern. Gift of the Mendel family 1965.
Object number1965.4.5
Classificationspainting
Collections
On View
Not on viewA founding member of the Group of Seven, J. E. H. MacDonald quit a successful career as a commercial artist to devote more time to landscape painting. An exhibition in 1911 impressed fellow artists, including Lawren Harris and C. W. Jeffreys, with his “refreshing absence of Europe.” Together, Harris and MacDonald went on many sketching trips in Ontario and Quebec, and by 1913, they had begun to congregate with other artists who sought an uninhibited, original Canadian approach to painting.
Logs on the Gatineau depicts a view of the Gatineau River in Quebec which, from the 19th century until the second half of the 20th century, was used to transport logs to sawmills. Canadian critics of the day rejected the boldness of such paintings from MacDonald, deriding them as incoherent masses of colour. Now, Logs on the Gatineau is considered to be one of MacDonald’s most important early canvases, representing a transition from his flat, decorative landscapes — which had been influenced by art nouveau — to the more powerful, dramatic landscapes of the Algoma years that followed.
Logs on the Gatineau depicts a view of the Gatineau River in Quebec which, from the 19th century until the second half of the 20th century, was used to transport logs to sawmills. Canadian critics of the day rejected the boldness of such paintings from MacDonald, deriding them as incoherent masses of colour. Now, Logs on the Gatineau is considered to be one of MacDonald’s most important early canvases, representing a transition from his flat, decorative landscapes — which had been influenced by art nouveau — to the more powerful, dramatic landscapes of the Algoma years that followed.
