Alexander Young Jackson 1882 - 1974

Private Collection, Toronto
Private Collection

Jackson travelled to the more distant and inaccessible parts of Canada than any of his colleagues in the Group of Seven, except perhaps for Harris, and he kept at it for much longer than Harris did – by many years. And thus it was that he fetched up in Labrador when he was getting on toward his seventieth birthday, and was heading eagerly to the western region of the Northwest Territories not much before that. He had been over part of that area in the late 1920s with Frederick Banting, and he may have had more than a faint recollection of the character of that part of the country. Even so, he approached it as if it was fresh and novel for him, and he surely makes the viewer seem to see the vast stretches of Lac Labarge as if for the very first time.

What is uncannily smart about the painting is the way Jackson makes us look over the low shrubbery and rocks in the foreground (we are for all intents and purposes at the treeline here) toward the almost infinite vista beyond. This forceful compression of the lake between the immediate terrain, which takes up more than a third of the picture surface, and the sky and clouds, makes the lake itself and the granite islands and the bald and distant hills seem more intense and special. The almost rosy colour against the slatey blue of the water enhances the pleasure of the entire composition.

Seen through Jackson’s eyes, one might almost want to live there, he has made it look so handsome and attractive. Yet there is, too, the note of loneliness in this painting. One senses the certainty that it is an unforgiving land, and one that could easily defeat the most resilient of humans if it chose to.