Additional Images

Provenance:

Roberts Gallery Limited, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

Note:

Varley first went to British Columbia in 1926 to take up the position of drawing and painting instructor at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. Unsure of the direction his art would take, Varley soon found inspiration in the landscape of British Columbia. Varley was energized by the vast scale of the landscape, the mountains, the ocean and the climate, and embarked on sketching trips, painting the mountains in forms that were almost abstract. Interested in colour symbolism, Varley developed a comprehensive colour theory which he used as a starting point to impart a particular mood to a painting. He favoured a restricted palette of blue-greens and violet (he considered green to be spiritual and pale violet to be aesthetic) which he applied to canvases such as Coast Mountain Forms of circa 1929 (collection of the National Gallery of Canada), constructed almost entirely of blues and violets.

Varley remained in B.C. until 1936, and, except for a visit in 1937, did not return until 1957. That year, he made the first of several sketching trips to the Kootenay Lake region in the company of his close companion, Kathleen McKay.

Although Varley has used the same palette of blue-green and violet of the earlier B.C. works, he seems less interested in giving expression to the spiritual in nature’s forms and colours than to the effects of light. It has been suggested that Varley is indebted to to J.M.W. Turner in his use of sunlight to illuminate elements in the landscape. Here, the play of light on the water below can be seen through the branches of the foreground trees. The composition harkens back to the iconic landscapes of Georgian Bay where a solitary tree stands silhouetted against the water and sky (Squally Weather, Georgian Bay, 1920, collection of the National Gallery of Canada).