Framed by History

at promulgating it, the suppression ofinternational influences for nationalist ideals may create its own limits in that Canadian subject matter will be mainly ofinterest to Canadians, as indeed, the Group of Seven has been. That said, the advantages were idealistic rather than material for the Group. Hill carefully records all sales from the shows, and points out many times of real financial difficulty for all but Harris, whose private income was a help to more than one member . Jackson was the only one who lived from artmaking alone, while the others taught or did commercial work. Dr. Shirley L. Thompson, Director of the National Gallery of Canada, thanks the Chubb Insurance Company for sponsorship of the exhibition, thus proving once again that the arts can command financial support, however late it may be in arriving. By quantity of reference material alone, one can deduce from Hill's catalogue that this is, finally, Jackson's story - the member with the broadest perspective and the biggest stakeholder in the project. Think about the Group without Jackson, or Jackson without the Group, an exercise that doesn't work with any of the other members . Within this context his career can be seen as either expedited or mediated by nationalism, perhaps both. But it was collectively that the Group made a name for themselves, a position within Canadian history , and a direction which ensuing generations of artists continued or repudiated. Their importance extended not only into nationalist concerns and the creation of a strong unabashedly Canadian voice, but also into what they called Canadian modem art. The elements of modernist painting which they employed to express aspects of Canadian landscape were shocking to the Canadian viewing public and at the same time modest in comparison to the directions that modem art was taking in the larger world. So we continue to revere this group of painters, for any number of reasons which connect to their promotional, artistic and ideological skills, as well as our collective ideas about nationhood. Magnificent? Moderately so. 178 ENDNOTES 1. Jane Smiley, "Say it Ain't So, Huck: Second Thoughts on Mark Twain's 'Masterpiece,'" Harper's Magazine January 1996: 62. 2. Charles Hill The Group ofSeven: Artfor a Nation (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1995) 292. 3. Fred Jacob, "The New Canadian Art," Toronto Mail and Empire (10 May 1919) quoted in Hill 83. 4. Barbeau quoted in Hill 32. 5. Thomson, of course, was not a member of the Group of Seven, only because of his death in 1917 before the Group was officially formed. 6. H.H. Amason, History ofModem Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture (New York: Abrams, 1978) 92. 7. Bridle quoted in Hill 321. MARGARET RODGERS Visual Arts Centre, Bowmanville Framed by History The National Gallery was attempting to avoid controversy with their Group of Seven show Art for a Nation, a conservative reconstruction of the Group's annual exhibits. The exhibit and catalogue strove to be straightforward presentations of history , to offer the facts as ifgiven, avoiding the complications which come with interpretation . The catalogue documents: beyond a history of the group constructed from correspondence and critical notices, it makes little attempt to comment on the work's meaning or the legacy of the Group's project. The paintings are presented as facts, as given objects within a determined, and determining, context. Viewed as auto-constructing objects, they constitute for themselves an empirical meaning which grounds itself in the Group's project, itself grounded in their connection to the land. The context of the exhibit seeks to erase itself. Such re-ereRevue d'etudes canadiennes ation, such insistence on the historical as the natural context of the work strives towards transparency. The re-creation, in assuming and insisting on the given ground of historical facts, presents itself not as interpretation, but as a transparent medium for perceiving the meaning inherent in the work. This attempt at transparency is rendered highly visible when Art for a Nation becomes inscribed within the OH! Canada Project. The imposition of an additional frame around the exhibit provides a ground against which the figure of the National Gallery's conceptual framework stands out. It is as if the conservativeness of...