Ruisseau Jureux, 1931

Masters Gallery, Calgary Private Collection

Exhibition of Seascapes and Water-Fronts by Contemporary Artists and an Exhibition of the Group of Seven, The Art Gallery of Toronto, December 4 – 24, 1931, no. 89

Charles C. Hill, Canadian Painting in the Thirties, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1975, pages 11, 21 and 27 David P. Silcox, The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, Toronto, 2003, pages 181-83

The small village of Ruisseau Jureux is situated within the county of St. Irénée in the picturesque Charlevoix region of Quebec. A.Y. Jackson depicts this scenic nature of this town during the season of transition. In a monochromatic palette of earth tones, the artist paints the calm body of water surrounded by a forest and rocky shoreline of sparse, bare branches. Charles C. Hill remarks on Jackson’s preference to portray these time periods in the Canadian landscape: “It was the changing seasons that attracted A.Y., not the bright greens of summer, nor the blank whiteness of winter, but the flow of winter to spring or the blaring up of summer into autumn.” Jackson completed “Ruisseau Jureux” in 1931, when the Group of Seven dominated as Canada’s national art movement, and the painter served as the association’s leading spokesman. He believed that an art determined by geography and created by artists ‘with their feet in the soil’ would serve as a true expression of Canada, and that a resurgence of Canadian art would emerge out of the continued interpretation of its landscape. A.Y. Jackson and Edwin Holgate were the only two Group members native to Quebec, and both men frequently depicted the Quebec landscape, more than any other members. Hill writes that Jackson typified their popular image: “robust, adventurous, a man of the soil, and a democrat”, returning each time with his quota of sketches to be painted up into canvases. For many years Jackson embarked on annual trips to the Îles aux Coudres, the Ile d’Orléans, the small villages along the north shore of the St. Lawrence in the Charlevoix region (such as Ruisseau Jureux), or the south shore east of Lévis and toward the Gaspé. Jackson was known throughout these areas as “Père Raquette”, as he preferred to travel by snowshoes during the winter. His travel companions included Dr. Frederick Banting and Arthur Lismer on occasion. Jackson would return from these trips each time with a large number of sketches to be completed on canvas in his studio. David Silcox writes that there are “many charming and vigorous works in Jackson’s documentation of this region.” The year 1931 marked the beginning of a turning point for the Group of Seven, as they were pressured from younger artists to be more inclusive and venture beyond their mission and its restrictions. Members disagreed about how the Group should expand. A.Y. Jackson acknowledged these difficulties and made an announcement to the Group at Lawren Harris’ house following a 1931 exhibition: “The interest in a freer form of art expression in Canada has become so general that we believe the time has arrived when the Group of Seven should expand, and the original members become the members of a larger group of artists, with no officials or constitution, but held together by common intention of doing original and sincere work.” The following year, Jackson and the Group of Seven disbanded to form the new, larger association known as the Canadian Group of Painters.