|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
Quill & Quire
From a young age, Canadians learn about our country’s most famous painting movement in art classes, yet the Group of Seven’s dramatic landscapes and blazing depictions of Canada’s wilderness still don’t seem to get the respect they deserve.
Ross King, the best-selling author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and, more recently, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, redresses this imbalance by situating the group of artists within a larger historical context. His compellingly detailed account begins in 1912, as the painters were just meeting, and continues through the Great War, culminating with the group’s eventual disbanding in the 1930s. King’s elegant prose is a joy to read as he introduces each figure, giving the reader a rare glimpse into the lives of young men who were united by the desire to create a distinctly Canadian painting style at a time when critics, collectors, and the public were hostile toward the aspiring modernists.
The book opens with Tom Thomson and A.Y. Jackson, who met as young designers at Grip Painting and Publishing Co., en route to paint in Algonquin Park. The paintings of another co-worker, J.E.H. Macdonald, were noticed by Lawren Harris, scion of the wealthy Massey-Harris family, whose own artistic sensibility had been influenced by Edvard Munch and the Gruppe der Elf (Group of Eleven). Together, Harris and Macdonald established the Studio Building on Toronto’s Severn Street and recruited Thomson, Jackson, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, and a few others to join them.
The book follows these artists – then known as the Algonquin Park School – as they struggle to earn a living, aided by their patron, Dr. MacCallum, and National Gallery of Canada director Eric Brown. The Group also faced detractors, including the notably crabby Saturday Night assistant editor Hector Charlesworth, the painter Carl Ahrens, and even, in later years, Prime Minister Mackenzie King.
The heady relationships among the men – from Thomson as MacDonald’s protégé to Harris as the group’s de facto leader – emerge throughout the book, and King spends considerable time recounting each artist’s adventures during the First World War. By the time the group officially formed in 1920, their style was already outdated in Europe, but readers of this book will be reminded of their tremendous achievements, which provide a timeless reflection of our country’s magnificent landscape.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.Review
"It's to dispel the myth of [uncultured artists] that Ross King has risen to the challenge of writing yet another book on the gang. It is a real collective biography, focusing on the personalities of the painters, their influences and the swirling currents of nationalism, theosophy and Whitmanesque transcendentalism they were caught up in." (Toronto Star 20101201)
"In Defiant Spirits, King gets at much more than what the Group of Seven painted; he discloses who the men were and brings them to life." (Eye Weekly 20101127)
"Ross King's collective look at the Group of Seven not only paints vivid portraits of the individual artists, but it reaffirms their place in Canadian cultural history and offers a clearer understanding of what it was like to persist in artistic activity." (Globe & Mail 20101123)
"Ross King's Defiant Spirits not only situates Tom Thompson, A.Y. Jackson, et al in their historical contexts, it also conveys their emerging artistic sensibilities and their desire to create an authentic Canadian art, even in the face of institutional hostility." (Quill & Quire 20101119)
"If Ross King were a geologist, he'd have made millions striking untapped rivulets of gold or oil in overlooked places. Instead, as an art historian, he mines nuggets of obscure information that he forges into page-turners about Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Manet and, in this new book, the Group of Seven." (Montreal Gazette 20101001)
"[Defiant Spirits] is a paradigm shift. With his usual spirited prose and faultless research, King makes internationalists out of the Group of Seven, showing them responding and reacting to the art of their day and the socio-political upheavals brought about by the First World War. These were ambitious artists and King never lets them settle into the comforts of cottage life and Canadiana." (Canadian Art 20100928)
"King, an admirably industrious researcher and deft writer, already much admired for his books on the Renaissance, splendidly braids together the lives of eight painters, the seven members of the Group and Tom Thomson. His skill and intelligence make Defiant Spirits an essential addition to any library of Canadian art history." (National Post 20101016)
"With Defiant Spirits, King, as in his other biographical art histories, takes on big subjects, big personalities and big events and weaves them into a concise, entertaining narrative. He is a master researcher and biographer and this book serves as an informative introduction to an important era in Canadian art history." (Telegraph Journal 20110723)
"Biographer and historian King traces the roots of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven back to 1912, when their exposure to the works of Cezanne, van Gogh and other European modernist artists combined with their love of the Canadian wilderness to create a new and totally Canadian style." (Globe & Mail 20111031)
"King's writing is characterized by clarity, compassion, and humanist intelligence...The personal, political, and aesthetic obstacles they encountered are described here with sympathy, so that we feel we've actually met these individuals -- the goal of any good biography." (Library Journal )
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love of Natural Landscape,
By Ian Gordon Malcomson (Victoria, BC) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
Ce commentaire est de: Defiant Spirits (Hardcover)
For someone like myself who has only a cursory knowledge of the modern Canadian art scene, reading King's "Defiant Spirits" offered me a great opportunity to journey into the past and discover a dynamic movement that continues to reshape our country's national image both at home and abroad. In this book, King very methodically and descriptively pieces together the story of how a number of landscape painters came together in the early part of the 20th century to develop a radically new concept of how Canadians might choose to see the land they called Canada. Based on a strong influence of impressionism and post-impressionism coming out of Europe in the late 19th century, these seven men and their many associates developed an interpretation of rural and urban Canada that was representative of many deep spiritual encounters with the natural, social and economic forces shaping this young nation. To assist his readers to come to grips with the emotive power of their expressive paintings, King takes them through the transformation that each painter like Jackson, Varley, Harris, Lismer, Johnston, and Thomson experienced on their road to creating a made-in-Canada art form. Along the way, there were many bumps and reversals that were only overcome by their ability to feed of each other and refine the signature product. Mixed in with the discussion of their personal lives is considerable reference to the famous technique of painting that embodied the innovative use of gaudy colors to unlock extraordinary sensations from a natural landscape. The two parts of the account that really hit home with me were the personal struggles and tragic death of Thomson and the war experiences of Jackson and Varley as they worked on the Western Front as war painters. Their personal demons and inadequacies found their way into their work in such a way as to capture both the solace of beauty and the harshness of reality. Included in this book is an excellent set of prints that allows the reader a fair representation of the many pieces this fraternity produced. This is truly an enlightening and inspiring biography that needs to be read by all Canadians who admire the role that the natural world plays in making our country a great place to live and love.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Defiant Spirits.,
Ce commentaire est de: Defiant Spirits (Paperback)
The Group of Seven has always been of interest to me as I am an artist myself. I also feel it is important to promote our own canadian artists.The author, Ross King, has done an extensive amount of research to put this book together. I found the style of his writing made the collection of artists and the history of Canada well done. Especially the political troubles of the First World War. This excellent piece of writing is the kind of book that I enjoy being an artist who is still studying, I also have a deep love for Canadian history.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 3 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice insight,
By John Berry - Published on Amazon.com
Achat Amazon vérifié(Quest-ce que cest?)
Ce commentaire est de: Defiant Spirits (Hardcover)
Loved reading this book. It took an excellent viewpoint, the Groups modernism and what they were trying to accomplish with their work and their writings.
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Arts & Photography > History & Criticism > Regional > Canadian
- Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Modern
- Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Artists, Architects & Photographers
- Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > Canadian
- Books > History > Americas > Canada
- Books > History > Canada
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
|
