WILLIAM HENRY CLAPP, A.R.C.A. THE ARTIST AND HIS MODEL Oil on panel 10.5 ins x 13.75 ins; 26.7 cms x 34.9 cms Private collection
“A Modernist, William Henry Clapp is one of the monarchs of Canadian Impressionism. Indifferent as an artist to the emotional elements implicit in everyday experience, he extolled landscapes and the human figure — specifically the nude. In painting these works, he observed the phenomena of light on the generative forces of the organic world. The body is only a detail, an iconography, subordinate to the pattern in which light and shade govern vision. Immersed in golden quietude, Clapp’s art is all the more credible because of its objective truth — an art of passive reverie that has inspired all Impressionists since Renoir who are preoccupied with light and colour to the exclusion of human issues.”A signature of his works, Clapp’s setting is diaphanous and diffused. Mauves and violets blend with rosy white to form his model’s supple flesh. The eye is attracted by the sensuous application of colour, a hazy softness that tempts and beguiles us. The artist gazes back at the viewer, catching us in our intrigue of this Andromeda, against a backdrop of deep yellow. More on William Henry Clapp…
JOYCE WIELAND, R.C.A. L’ASSASSINAT DE MARAT PAR CHARLOTTE CORDAY, c. 1987 Oil on canvas, 53 ins x 39 ins; 134.6 cms x 99.1 cms Private collection
CHARLOTTE CORDAY, It was on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the sacking of the Bastille, 13 July 1793, that the noblewoman Charlotte Corday, knocked on Jean-Paul Marat’s door. Claiming knowledge of an escaped group of Girondins, Corday was permitted entry and recited her list of 18 offenders. In truth, Corday was a Girondin sympathizer, a member of an impoverished aristocratic family seeking to avenge the ‘wrongdoings’ of the Revolution. After Marat had finished writing down the names, he assured the lady that the ‘heads’ of the guilty would ‘fall within a fortnight.’ With her true allegiance called to task, Corday produced a kitchen knife from her corset, and slayed the politician. She would later testify during her four-day trial that she had ‘killed one man to save 100,000.’The works of Joyce Wieland are frequently lauded as emblems of patriotism and feminism. “From the beginning of her career, Joyce did not try to paint like a man, even at a time when mainly men’s work was considered authentic art. Working from the wellspring of who she was, a woman and a feminist…meant accepting an inescapable identity that modified her position in art; as a woman she was marginal even though she was the country’s leading (woman) artist by the late sixties.”In this work, Wieland re-infuses the scene, immortalized previously in a work by Jacques-Louis David, with the female voice. The viewer is compelled by the artist to reinvestigate the narrative, the moment captured, and the true hero. As Wieland inscribed: MODERÉE: To “moderate” the story, to make less extreme, the average, the commonplace.This work was executed in 1987, the year in which Wieland became the first living Canadian-woman artist to be given a career-long retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario (16 April-28 June 1987). More on CHARLOTTE CORDAY…
WILLIAM HENRY CLAPP, A.R.C.A. THE ARTIST AND HIS MODEL oil on panel 10.5 ins x 13.75 ins; 26.7 cms x 34.9 cms Private collection
William Henry Clapp is one of the monarchs of Canadian Impressionism. Indifferent as an artist to the emotional elements implicit in everyday experience, he extolled landscapes and the human figure – specifically the nude. In painting these works, he observed the phenomena of light on the generative forces of the organic world. The body is only a detail, an iconography, subordinate to the pattern in which light and shade govern vision. Immersed in golden quietude, Clapp’s art is all the more credible because of its objective truth – an art of passive reverie that has inspired all Impressionists since Renoir who are preoccupied with light and colour to the exclusion of human issues.”A signature of his works, Clapp’s setting is diaphanous and diffused. Mauves and violets blend with rosy white to form his model’s supple flesh. The eye is attracted by the sensuous application of colour, a hazy softness that tempts and beguiles us. The artist gazes back at the viewer, catching us in our intrigue of this Andromeda, against a backdrop of deep yellow. More on this painting
William Henry Clapp, landscape and figure painter (b at Montréal 29 Oct 1879; d at Oakland, Ca 21 Apr 1954). Born of American parents, Clapp lived in Oakland 1885-1900. He studied at the Art Association of Montreal 1900-03 with William BRYMNER, and painted at St-Joachim and Baie-Saint-Paul with Clarence GAGNON. From 1904 to 1908 he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian, the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière with J.-P. Laurens, Tony Robert-Fleury and Lucien Simon, and in Madrid with William Laparra. He painted in Belgium and Spain.
Living in Montréal from 1908 to 1915, Clapp exhibited some of the most advanced impressionist canvases in Canada. Almost a pointillist in touch, his surfaces vibrate with broken colour and dappled light. Clapp left for Cuba in 1915, settling in Oakland in 1917, where he was curator (1918-20) and director of the Oakland Art Gallery (1920-1949). In Canada he was a member of the Canadian Art Club (1913-15) and in California of the Society of Six (1923-28). He stopped exhibiting in Canada in 1918. More on William Henry Clapp
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