As modernist abstraction emerged as a popular style in the 1940s and 50s in Canada, Manly MacDonald asserted himself as a Traditionalist. He was involved in controversy throughout the 1950s after he resigned from the Ontario Society of Artists in protest against the rise of modernism within the Society; he felt traditional painters were no longer being given opportunities to showcase their work, despite his own success. He became the standard-bearer for a traditional approach to landscape painting. The great irony of MacDonald’s reputation as a conservative, though, was that MacDonald did not actually adhere to the style of realism that was associated with earlier Canadian landscape painters. Like the Group of Seven, MacDonald experimented with impressionist techniques at a time when Canadian artists were attempting to break free from European molds and create a quintessentially Canadian way of painting. MacDonald’s trepidation was not toward the kind of brushstroke deployed by the modernists, but rather the content of the painting: he vehemently believed that painters should draw their inspiration from “the warm breathing world of flesh and blood and growing things.”
In “Summer, Moira River”, MacDonald’s impressionistic brush strokes and playful use of colour actually serve the purpose of adding a living element to the scene: we see the water shimmer, the leaves rustle in the wind, and the clouds blowing past behind a boy at play. The painting appears to be calmly in motion and invites us to take a warm breath of summer air. It is of “the warm breathing world” and has the timeless quality for which MacDonald always strove.
