Additional Images

Provenance:

Collection of Dr. George Cooper, Ottawa, ON;
Collection of Diana Ainslie, Ottawa, ON

Note:

Later in life, well into his seventies, A.Y. Jackson could not regularly travel to sketching grounds the way he did a quarter let alone almost a half-century earlier. Nonetheless, his commitment to painting the land was as strong as his commitment to his evolution as a painter, and he continued to travel around Ontario and Quebec on sketching trips in spring, summer, and fall.

About 75 kilometres northeast of Manotick, Ontario, Ripon, Quebec, was accessible to Jackson after he left Toronto in 1955 to live near his niece outside of Ottawa following the sale of the Studio Building. The land around Ripon is more open, less rolling, and further inland than his beloved Charlevoix region. Its terrain and light were different, and Jackson made them his own. April, Ripon, Que., has features well-loved in Jackson’s winter and spring compositions: light playing on the snow, clusters of farm buildings, split rail fences that lead our eyes through the painting, and a red horse-drawn sleigh.

What is so special about April, Ripon, Que., is Jackson’s adaptation to both his diminishing physical capacity and a new landscape with a new manner of painting. Summoning the experience of his years, Jackson deftly used lean cadmium yellow, ultramarine and white painted wet-in-wet to define the snow-covered landscape and reflect the turbulent overcast sky. The cloud’s swirls, finials for the barren tree’s crown, and stalks in the foreground activate a composition that is stabilised by the middle-ground’s buildings topped with lozenges of pale blue, burnt sienna, and a deep green of ultramarine and yellow. Ever consistent, Jackson’s populated landscape remained distinctly Canadian.