Inspired by the landscape around Little Cauchon Lake in eastern Algonquin Park, this picture of a solitary jack pine, its drooping boughs silhouetted in the light of a northern Ontario sunset, assumes special emotional and symbolic significance through the artist's formal treatment. The stylization and decorative patterning of natural forms, along with the strong colour and light contrasts, transform this image of a northern tree dominating its rocky landscape into an icon embodying the spirit of the land and the Canadian experience of nature.
Kate Brayley
Learn more about the Jack Pine:
http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/tres...
The Jack Pine was not painted in 1917 as stated in the video. The sketch was painted in 1916 on the shores of Grand Lake in Algonquin Park. The canvas would then have been painted during the winter of 1916-17 as the winter is when Thomson did all his large canvases. As well, the text is wrong in saying it was done on Little Couchon Lake in eastern Algonquin Park. Little Couchon is in the north of the park and the Jack Pine was sketched on Grand Lake in the east.
AlgonquinVoyageur 10 months ago