The River, Baie-Saint-Paul, 1929

Collection of the Artist, Toronto Mary Osler Boyd, Toronto, 1934 Private Collection, Ottawa, by descent Dominion Gallery, Montreal, 1966 David Molson, Montreal, 1966 Kenneth G. Heffel Fine Art Inc., Vancouver Private Collection, Vancouver Joyner Fine Art, auction, Toronto, 25 November 1994, lot 31 as "The Gouffre River, Baie St-Paul" Masters Gallery, Calgary Private Collection

"Exhibition of the Group of Seven", Art Gallery of Toronto, 5-27 April 1930, no. 81 as "The River, Baie St. Paul" "Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Group of Seven and Other Artists", Art Association of Montreal, 3-18 May 1930, no. 81 as "The River, Baie St. Paul" at $300 Paintings by A.Y. Jackson, J. Merritt Malloney’s Gallery, Toronto, to 10 March 1934, no.14 as The River at Baie Paul

Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Naomi Jackson Groves fonds (MG30-D351) Container 95-11, Letters to Florence Clement 1923- 1924; Container 69-20 Inventory Binder 1930 A.Y. Jackson, 'Winter Sketching', "Supplement to the McGill News", VIII:3 (June 1927), pages 298-300 'Kenneth G. Heffel Fine Art. Inc.', "Canadian Art Sales Index 1980-81", Vancouver, 1981, reproduced page 4

The Lower Saint Lawrence became A.Y. Jackson’s favourite painting site in the 1920s. He painted at Cacouna on the south shore opposite Tadoussac in the spring of 1921 and in March 1923 visited Baie-Saint-Paul for the first time. Situated on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence, the picturesque village lies at the mouth of the Gouffre River, which meanders down from Saint-Urbain, the village made so famous by Clarence Gagnon’s 1925 canvas "Village in the Laurentian Mountains" (National Gallery of Canada). On 16 March 1923 Jackson wrote to his cousin Florence Clement, “It's snowing in Baie St. Paul. It seldom seems to stop and soon there won’t be anything to paint but snow. ... The village is rather fine. New church, very awful architecture replacing a fine old one and a lot of gaily painted houses, but rather hard to compose. However there should be something to do when the little river breaks up.” On 10 January 1924 he again wrote to Florence Clement from Baie-Saint-Paul. “I don’t like the winter quite so early in January. I like it when it is over the divide and you can see or feel the oncoming of spring. Now winter is just a little too cocky. It looks too much like Christmas cards here now. I see them all over.” Jackson was fascinated by the changing effects of light and snow. “March and April are the happy sketching months, when the snow is old and rich in form and texture, and the cold does not stiffen the colours or nip the fingers, and when the thaw starts, every day brings changes of colour and new elements in design.... The snow ... is sensitive to every phase of light, and changes in sympathy with the sky; the relationship of the two is often the chief problem,” he wrote in the "Supplement to the McGill News" in 1927. Jackson was especially attracted to the architecture and inhabited rural landscape of the older regions of Quebec and his principal subjects in the mid-1920s were the villages and farmhouses, the rural roads and wind-swept barns. However, the landscape was changing, as he bemoaned in that same McGill article. “The picturesque side of Quebec is rapidly disappearing, the traditional architecture has given way to the bungalow and red brick atrocities surrounded by verandahs, the homespun and rugs and blankets are being made to sell to tourists, the old boat-shaped red sleigh which faded to violet grey is being supplanted by an artist-proof factory article.... The painter, however, is not dependent on the picturesque, ... fine canvases can be developed from the slightest of external [motifs].” In March 1928 Jackson once again returned to Baie-Saint-Paul to find the village smothered in snow. Possibly disturbed by the changes in the architecture of the village and unable to move up to Saint-Urbain due to an outbreak of smallpox, Jackson painted the landscape around the Gouffre River. Worked up from an oil sketch painted that March and now in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, "River, Baie St. Paul", marks a turning point in Jackson’s depiction of the rural Quebec landscape. No house, barn or sleigh occupies the river valley. The painting has been developed from “the slightest of external motifs,” the river and surrounding hills. The muted palette of browns and greys, similar to Jackson’s "Beothic at Bache Poste" (National Gallery of Canada) also shown in the 1930 Group of Seven exhibition, is accented by rich blue shadows and white snow in the distant hills. Red branches emerge from the snow on the far slope and the transparent brown water is edged by touches of green ice. From the foreground shore to the curving river to the riverbank, hills and clouds, the whole composition is determined by the interplay of broadly brushed, rolling rhythms. We extend our thanks to Charles Hill, Canadian art historian, former Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada and author of "The Group of Seven‒Art for a Nation", for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.