A new approach to the Group of Seven

who were almost invariably excellent, actors who brought to their parts the kind of imagination and distinction that, say, Mervyn Blake brings to roles like Loyal, the first grave-digger, Escalus, that Neil Dainard is increasingly bringing to his parts, or that Mr. Hughes brought to his Elbow. This year some performances were not only less than competent, but weak enough seriously to affect the overall quality of production and diminish the sense of ensemble: those for instance in the parts of Claudio, Valere, Drugger, and Horatio. The general level of performance and the feeling of teamwork at StratA new approach to the Group of Seven MARGARET F. R. DAVIDSON As many of us can bear witness, the wall of a bank or school in Canada within the last twentyfive years would have looked bare without a reproduction of a Group of Seven picture. Nor would a school textbook have been easily identifiable as native without an illustration of a solitary pine tree balanced on a slab of pre-Cambrian rock, or perhaps some reminiscences from that most stalwart defender of the Group, A. Y. Jackson. So accustomed have we become to the paintings of an imposing and unpeopled land, so relieved that with the Group of Seven we can point to something undeniably "Canadian", that we have spent little time in exploring the origins of a most powerful movement in the arts in Canada. Instead, we have emphasized the story of the artists' rise to recognition, wherein, it is said, the painters manfully overcame a widespread hostility on the part of the press and public to their paintings of a rugged and often barren land. In so doing, we have failed to divine the forces that combined to produce the Journal of Canadian Studies ford declined this year, and it's unfortunate that the decline should occur at a time when, with its new home in Ottawa and with extensive tours, the Company has belatedly become the National Company of English-speaking Canada. While Stratford's seventeenth season was financially its best ever, it was artistically both very uneven and one in which the general level was not as high as one has come to expect. But perhaps it's unfair to ask for more than three firstclass productions in one season, and in the Measure for Measure, the Tartuffe, and the Hadrian VII, we certainly had them. Group's definition of the country. By perceiving only the strange tranquillity of their northern landscapes, we have come to accept the wilderness as our heritage, and have transformed it into the Canadian playground, without asking what led the Group of Seven to paint that particular face of the country. We can better understand the impetus which spurred on the painters by an examination of the milieu in which they lived and worked. The artists first came together in Toronto in the period before the War, where they worked as commercial designers (with the exception of Lawren Harris, and of Jackson, who came from Montreal). The interests and friendships shared by the men extended far beyond this bond, however, and are best reflected by their membership in the Arts and Letters Club, formed in 1908. Here feelings running counter to the prevailing materialist ethic of Toronto could be articulated. The great fireplace, revered by the members, came to stand for the role of the Club in providing warmth against the coldness of the cultural life of the city.1 Here the painters to become the Group of Seven met to eat, to exhibit sketches, and to discuss the possibilities of breaking loose from the reactionary attitudes towards art of Toronto. Augustus Bridle later described the 9 pre-War meeting place in the old Assize Court on Court Street: This everyday melange of all the arts came to a head in the grim, unconventional suite of rooms and the big hall, at the top of the spiral staircase. A weird, delightful rendezvous! Absolute escape from all that was otherwise Toronto.2 Included in this "melange" was Barker Fairley, who would, in 1920, become a member of the first editorial board of the Canadian Forum. His friendship with the artists, and his enthusiasm...