L’Art Galerie d’Art Yvon Desgagnés, Baie Saint-Paul
Joyner Canadian Fine Art, auction, Toronto, December 4, 2001, lot 129
Private Collection, Calgary
Arthur Lismer was enchanted by the sea and its shorelines more than any other Group of Seven member. Sketches and paintings of both Canadian coasts were a favourite subject from his early days as an artist into his late career. Lismer lived in Nova Scotia from 1916-1919, where he depicted Halifax harbour scenes with military vessels from the First World War. He also painted dreamy seascapes with dramatic sky and cloud formations, recalling his studies of John Constable and the Romanticists. Yet Lismer always added his own modern and expressive approach in his thick brushstrokes of vibrant colour. As fellow artist Harold Beament remarked on this style: “There was a controlled rowdiness in Lismer, a roughness. His turbulence showed through his training.”
The Pacific coast immediately became a source of inspiration in 1951, when Lismer and his wife took a trip to Vancouver Island. They would return every summer for the rest of his life, where they stayed at a small cottage near a bay in Long Beach. The lush vegetation and shorelines provided a new landscape for Lismer to paint and show his endless admiration for the Canadian wilderness. In “Seascape”, Lismer’s characteristic vigorous paint application fills the entire picture. He evokes a day of violent winds and white-capped waves. The cerulean blue ocean exemplifies another of Lismer’s mode of expression - the jewel-toned blues and greens used in his skies, forests and bodies of water.
