Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Ontario

Literature:

British Empire Exhibition (exh. cat) (London: Canadian Section of Fine Arts), p. 27, no. 190.

Exhibited:

British Empire Exhibition, Canadian Section of Fine Arts, London, UK, 1924-25.

Note:

For Phillips, water itself was a constant wonder: “Water is the most expressive element in nature. It responds to every mood from tranquillity to turbulence. The bubbling spring engenders and supports life; the raging torrent and the remorseless flood may be the instruments of its destruction. The surface of still water is our standard of horizontality, which is the well-spring of peace and repose. Even falling water induces little emotional disturbance for vertical lines are also static. Thus a waterfall may induce pleasurable thoughts and even its roar may be soothing.”[1]

Three Bathers, 1923, depicts the artist’s children in a body of water. Similar to some of his watercolours and woodcuts, such as Summer at the Lake from 1925 and The Bather from 1922, this painting uses Phillips' techniques of reflecting light on water. He achieved this iridescence thanks to his medium: “One of the advantages of the water-colour medium is that it is possible to achieve with it a sparkling effect of opalescent colour rivalling that of sunlight. It is not achieved by mixing pigment on the palette, but by visual fusion — partial mixing on the paper.”[2] Another of Phillips’ main motifs is displayed in Three Bathers: the figures are not facing the viewer, and instead turn away from the scene. Phillips details this as an influence of David Cox, a British painter and one of his biggest influences.[3]

[1] In 1917, Phillips bought a printing press from his colleague Cyril H. Barraud. He worked for several years on his woodcuts and was deeply inspired by Japanese printmaking.
[2] Walter Joseph Phillips in https://wjphillips.ca/the-landscape-painter/chapters-21-25/
[3] Walter Joseph Phillips in. https://wjphillips.ca/wet-paint/wet-paint-5/: “The psychological effect of a figure turning away from a scene, and facing the spectator would tend to lessen its importance, and diminish its beauty, whereas one gazing in a specified direction tends to encourage others to do the same, and does not provide a superfluous point. The posture and employment of a figure is as important as its position. It is sufficient to depict a young lady peering rapturously at a tree-top to suggest a nightingale, or a group of archers craning their necks in unison, to express the flight of an arrow.”

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