His Art

JEH MacDonald was a very prestigious artist, and his style, was very romantic, and full of expression, despite his painting of landscapes. In other words, MacDonald was original, a unique artist apart form the other members of the Group of Seven. Many Canadians adored his scenery, his choice of landscape, and everything about his paintings.

MacDonald was mostly known for his rich coloured landscapes of Canada with bold treatments, even though his landscape paintings were often known to be abstract. The artist was also known for the different effects that he produced such as mist, clouds, and various other background elements.

The special feature about MacDonald’s work was that he was able to use a variety of art techniques such as oil pastel, sketching, painting methods, and painting with different kinds of tools.

Much of MacDonald’s art also influenced different members of the group. He would often travel with boxcar trips with the Group to various locations where the landscaping was phenomenal.

The other uniqueness of MacDonald’s art was that the man was open to new ideas, new techniques, and had worked in a variety of different art forms: incorporating the traditional Canadian elements with book designing, magazine illustrating, book plating, lettering, armorial bearings, and illuminating presentation addresses, plaques, and signs.
Most of MacDonald’s art was inspired by these different crafts, and he differed that way from the rest of his Group members.
The craft of using a paint brush in the art world inspired MacDonald to use different painting strokes, and produce different effects with a specific image.
These were his strengths, as you can see in the paintings of Algoma falls, with oil pastel, as well as Mist Fantasy, with different paint techniques. The art viewers and critics admired many a thing about MacDonald, and his style.
When the Group of Seven was formed, MacDonald, the oldest, was 47 years of age. The Group members were thought to be young, fresh, and alive with their paintings. The art critics had agreed with that proposition, except, they did not think of MacDonald as a ‘young radical’.
Of MacDonald’s art, the critics felt that the artist’s paintings came with more difficulty than in his earlier work, along with a lack of original feeling for some reason.
Despite many of the critics’ opinions, MacDonald continued to paint and pursue his love, showing the world that he was the romantic that he was years ago as well. Some critics afterwards even felt that MacDonald’s later paintings were some of his best yet.