Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Estate, Ontario

Note:

While former colleagues from the Group of Seven moved towards the modernism of the 20th century, Franz Johnston instead moved backward in time. Though his vast body of work demonstrates an array of artistic styles, his work increasingly took on the narrative qualities of classic 19th century landscapes in all their splendour.

Roger Burford Mason notes the artist’s reputation as a painter who excelled in capturing "the elusive beauty of light effects,” and that “Johnston’s skill in rendering the quality of light on snow was thought to be unsurpassed.“ Trips to northern Quebec and Ontario and the area around Lake Nipigon helped him develop “his very special facility for painting the effect of light and shadow on snow, a theme which informs some of his most popular and enduring works.”[1]

In The Lifting Veil of Winter, Johnston’s palette and brushwork is able to perfectly capture the springtime thaw on the wintery landscapes which so defined the artist’s oeuvre. Deep blue shadows interplay with sun-warmed patches of snow to vibrant effect.

[1] Roger Burford Mason, A Grand Eye for Glory: The Life of Franz Johnston. (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1998), 62-63.