Frederick Varley's Stormy Weather Georgian Bay

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Stormy Weather Georgian Bay is Group of Seven member Frederick Varley’s most recognizable landscape work. He is known for his beautiful Canadian landscape paintings and his work as a war artist, though he was primarily a figure and portrait painter. Nature landscapes like this have become a notable signature of the Group of Seven; and Varley’s piece depicting a pine tree during a storm on Georgian Bay is no exception. Varley’s Stormy Weather Georgian Bay was painted in 1920, and is a tribute to his good friend; the late Tom Thompson and his 1917 painted titled The West Wind. The similarities to Thomson’s The West Wind can easily be seen in the brush strokes used to form the chaotic waves and within the clouds. There is also the use of the dominant greens and blues seen in the sky, the waves, …show more content…

They captured the natural beauty of Canada’s geography and in doing so gave Canadian’s a sense of artistic identity. The Group of Seven used dominating colours, like the greens and blues mentioned earlier, to not only had colour to their work but to also distinguish the Canadian style of art from European landscape paintings. In the 20’s, European paintings were very realistic landscapes and portraits, using brown as the dominant colour. The Group of Seven moved away from the European style of art with vibrant colours and loose brush strokes to create a new sense of Canadian identity through art.
Frederick Varley and all the other members of the Group of Seven were working towards creating a new Canadian Style of painting in a time where Canada was desperate to show how independent and different from Britain they were. Varley’s Stormy Weather Georgian Bay is a perfect example of art mirroring society. With this piece we can see the use of new, vibrant colours and loose flowing brush strokes to symbolize the new role that Canada was pushing to play as an independent nation on the world

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