Dali House

From 1920 to 1931, the post-impressionistic Group of Seven rode a queer, largely self-generated wave of nationalism to become Canadian icons. They were widely derided as iconoclasts in their day, as future icons often are, but now their history is taught in the country’s art schools, and in junior-school art classes by way of giving kids something to be proud about.
But if you don’t know the real story, they’re a dusty lot. The average Canadian will have heard about them, and knows they’re painters, but thinks they’re something to do with either the Inuits or the Fathers of Confederation, those statesmen who dragged the pieces of the nation together 40 years before the Group of Seven existed. See the rest.

They say Thomas John Thomson was born on August 5, 1877, “near” Claremont, Ontario, although I’m not sure what the “near” means. Claremont’s pretty small already. At any rate he was only a baby when the family moved to “near” Leith, which really is “near” Owen Sound, hard by Georgian Bay. See the rest.

Arthur Lismer: “Moon River”

Once Tom was buried and World War I ended all wars for good (and Canadian nationalism had had a goose), Harris got the ball rolling again, literally, by securing a bright red boxcar on the Algoma Central Railway, which was pulled to a different siding every few days.
It was equipped with bunks, a stove and a moose skull over the door adorned with the other Hippocratic oath, “Ars longa vita brevis”, by which the Greek meant learning medicine takes so long that the patient could die any time, but in this case, of course, had the gay simplicity of “Art is long, life is short”. See the rest.