Canadian Fine Arts, Toronto
Private Collection, Calgary
J.W. Beatty sought to depict the Canadian landscape as a patriotic statement. He was a forerunner to the the Group of Seven, sharing with them a nationalist pride in painting a uniquely Canadian landscape. “Fall Colours” demonstrates the increasingly lighter and more decorative palette of Beatty’s paintings throughout his career. The artist abandoned the dark and moody colour scheme of the traditional French and Dutch schools, selecting a vibrant orange for the autumn leaves on the trees. The colourful foliage in fall is a quintessential element of the Canadian wilderness, reinforcing Beatty’s theme of the ‘uniquely Canadian landscape’.
