Woman with a Book, 1907 by William Brymner

Provenance:
Mrs. William Brymner
Paul Viau
Sotheby’s, auction, Toronto, 25 February 2002, lot 4
Acquired by the present Private Collection, February 2002

Exhibited:
“William Brymner, 1855-1925: A Retrospective”, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston; travelling to National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Quebec City, 13 May–11 November 1979, no. 50 as “Untitled (Woman with a book)” (loaned by Paul Viau)

Literature:
Janet Braide, “William Brymner, 1855-1925: A Retrospective”, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 1979, no. 50, reproduced page 90
“Westbridge Art Market Report 28”, no. 3, April/May 2002, reproduced page 9

William Brymner’s “Woman with a Book” addresses a topic popular with artists at a time when increasing numbers of Canada’s expanding middle class—especially women—were embracing reading as a leisure activity. In 1893, for example, Joséphine Marchand‒Dandurand of Montreal founded “Le Coin du feu,” a monthly periodical (1893‒96), promoting reading amongst women. She also warned that morally dubious novels could be pernicious for women with undeveloped critical faculties, but by the time Brymner painted “Woman with a Book” such fears were focused less on adult women than on girls. Nothing in Brymner’s canvas suggests the worst‒case situation feared by Marchand‒Dandurand. The theme of women reading was treated with similar approval by many of Brymner’s contemporaries, especially women artists favouring images of female thoughtfulness rather than physical display. Helen McNicoll, for example, explored the subject in at least four paintings in 1913‒14: “The Chintz Sofa #2” (private collection), “In the Shadow of the Tree” (Musée national des beaux‒arts du Québec), “Under the Shadow of the Tent” (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), and “The Victorian Dress” (Art Gallery of Hamilton).

The palette of “Woman with a Book” initially appears simple, but is actually complex: something that perhaps reflects Brymner’s admiration of James Wilson Morrice, whose exquisite colour harmonies he came to appreciate while visiting and working with him in Canada and Italy in 1901, 1902 and 1903. The closest precedents in Brymner’s art to “Woman with a Book” are such images as “Longings/At the Window”, 1887 (Cowley Abbott, 22 November 2021) and “The Smithy, 1889” (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts). Woman with a Book, however, pushes the centrality of a single colour to new lengths. Only the figure’s face, blouse and yellow daffodils, all lit by a source emanating from beyond the left edge of the painting, punctuate the many shades of brown. The latter define the background wall, the narrow shelf on which the woman perches, her dress, hat, gloves and book, and the cloth draped over what appears to be a side table. These shades range from the coppery brown of the upper right wall (establishing the figure’s physical presence by pushing forward her left shoulder, arm and hip), to the deep shadows of the rest of the wall and the folds of the skirt. They are often shot through with sombre shades of other colours that become visible only upon close viewing: dark purples, ochres, greens, yellows and rusty reds, as well as the muted blue that defines areas of the woman’s hair and the scarcely articulated trim of her jacket. These extra colours enrich but never overwhelm the painting’s symphony of browns. Brymner taught his students that formal techniques must always further the emotion an artist is attempting to convey, and in this case he suggests unshowy introspection through his orchestration of sober browns interrupted only by essential highlighting.

Brymner favoured the conservative aesthetics in which he had been schooled in France in the 1870s and 1880s. In “Woman with a Book” the impact of his training as a draftsman is evident in the care with which the body is articulated under the clothing. Yet Brymner was also receptive to more recent art. Impressionism—a style on which he lectured in 1886 and 1897—is evident in the cursory treatment of the sitter’s ears, the daffodils, and especially the obscure object, perhaps a cushion, on which she leans her right elbow. Also modernist is the use of highly visible, broad brushwork throughout the painting, and the combination in the blouse of scumbled paint and exposed ground. According to one critic, Brymner’s openness to stylistic diversity meant that with each new artwork he began “not only with different aims but sometimes even with new technical methods, but in every case he got something which was well worth having”. Those words could easily be applied to “Woman with a Book”.

We extend our thanks to Brian Foss, Carleton University Chancellor’s Professor of Art & Architectural History, and co‒curator of “1920s Modernism in Montreal: The Beaver Hall Group” for his assistance in researching this artwork and contributing the preceding essay.