What was popular?
From our perspective, it might be difficult to see why Thomson’s art might have shocked viewers in the second decade of the twentieth-century. At that time, however, what art audiences were used to seeing was substantially different than what many artists create now. Painters were expected to emulate nineteenth-century European artistic standards – creating heroic, mythical scenes, and quaint, pastoral vistas.
Some of the exhibition reviews and other documents reproduced here will help you to understand what Toronto art audiences thought about the works of Thomson and his artistic peers. They may also help you to understand what sort of art Thomson and his peers were responding to.
Chapters in Books
- Fergus Kyle, The Ontario Society of Artists, The Year Book of Canadian Art, 1913
- Edmond Dyonnet, French-Canadian Painting and Sculpture, The Year Book of Canadian Art, 1913
- E. Wyly Grier, Canadian Art: A Resumé, The Year Book of Canadian Art, 1913
- F. B. Housser, "Nineteen-Thirteen", in A Canadian Art Movement, A Canadian Art Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, 1926
- F. B. Housser, "Signs of Revolt", in A Canadian Art Movement, A Canadian Art Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, 1926
- F. B. Housser, "The Beginning", in A Canadian Art Movement, A Canadian Art Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, 1926
Journal Articles
Newspaper or Magazine Articles