Suite des pays vastes, 1972

Marlborough-Godard, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto

Roald Nasgaard, “Abstract Painting in Canada”, Toronto/Vancouver, 2007, page 178 Dennis Reid, “A Concise History of Canadian Painting”, third edition, Toronto, 2012, pages 364-65

In the autumn of 1973, a retrospective of Jean McEwen’s work (”McEwen 1953-1973”), organized by Fernande Saint-Martin, was held at the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Montreal. Saint-Martin writes that McEwen “repeatedly stresses that what is important to him is the establishment of chromatic juxtapositions so extreme and rich, that they impose themselves on the spectator. Colour is to McEwen a mutable and expressive element to which he can never refer in terms of single pigments: he tends to talk of ‘the yellows’ or ‘the purples’ in the plural, suggesting thereby the emotional impact and symphonic potential of colour in concert.” In “Suite des pays vastes”, the colour variations are subtle yet quite rich, with white, beiges and dark red layered over a black ground. The colour palette reveals a unique tonal energy rather than arresting contrast. A prime example of the artist’s magnificently textured surfaces, this canvas “both seduce[s] us inwards into undecidable depths and hold[s] us away by reflective lustre.” Roald Nasgaard writes: “McEwen’s continuous coloured textures are built out of strata of superimposed paint layers, sometimes as many as a dozen. Their ever more variegated hues and tones lie in ambiguous depths, sometimes opaque and other times transparent and luminous.” The light both literally and figuratively bounces off this work. The shellac-like surface glistens in the light like the facets of raw obsidian, a nod towards the beauty and darkness found in nature, emulated in art. McEwen had abandoned oil paint for acrylic paint in the mid- to-late 1960s, but returned to the medium in 1970, often utilizing thick varnishes. The incredible lustre of “Suite des pays vastes” seems to announce his triumphant return to the medium, the artist seeking “a rich, patina-like resonance in his work.”