The National Art Gallery

Yesterday was the last super-hot day, perhaps not of the summer but at least for the last little while, as the evening cooled off and today is perfect, a sunny and pleasant morning, 18 degrees and meant to climb to 26. I spent most of the day, however, in air conditioning; my friend Fraser Glen was visiting from North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and we spent three hours in the Art Gallery.

Each time I go there I notice something more: this time there were some new-to-me Kureleks on display. I sat and looked at a very evocative one, "Green Sunday", in which Kurelek's foreground is a detail of a Ukrainian family on the prairies, looking out into the background through a window to what looks like a lane lined with spring poplars. The detail on the woman's clothing is gorgeous, with minute attention to embroidery, and the man, in profile, is playing an accordion. I was also very taken with a painting by Allen Sapp, from Red Pheasant Reserve in Saskatchewan, in which he depicted a circle of people in a field, engaged in an unspecified activity. Follow the link for an amazing presentation about Sapp and the Cree.

I also sat in wonderment before a small painting by Tom Thomson, (for those of you who are not Canadian, you really should have a look at everything you can by our Group of Seven). This particular painting was a landscape of a quiet lake, in fact titled "The Silent Lake 1913"), an oil on canvas, but what I liked most was the dark water (no blues, just greys and blacks) reflecting in juxtaposition against a sky done mostly in fine shades of very soft yellows and browns, a little pink, which created the most amazing evocation of evening light. This was not a 'photograph' painting but a PAINTING, emphatically something for texture and human creativity that could not have been a "postcard photo". I sometimes hear people ask why painters still make landscapes when photography can do the same thing. It's a strange question to me (somewhat analogous to asking why we still think when we've got computers!) but...this painting was, in itself, an answer to the question. The light in it was magic.

There were also several 'feature' areas where several paintings by an artist could be found, and one of them was David Milne, whom I know is a particular favourite of my friend, Saskatoon artist Lorenzo Dupuis, whom you can google for lots of glimpses of his work and to whom I am supplying you one link. I like his work a lot and am a proud owner of one of his paintings...

so I recommend that you fill up your spirit and soul with the arts, today.