John Hartman

John Hartman: Cognashene And Go Home Bay, 2014

Cognashene And Go Home Bay, 2014, oil on linen, 60 x 66 inches

Cognashene And Go Home Bay

At the horizon and on the left you are looking at Christian, Hope and Beckwith Islands and at Giants Tomb. On the right horizon is the South Pine Island. Below the Tomb is the northern end of Beausoleil Island and below that is Honey Harbour. The southern side of Go Home Bay occupies the right side of the composition. Six of the original members of the Group of Seven form a triangular stack of heads on the right side of the canvas. Although Carmichael and Harris are not known for their paintings of this area, Jackson, Lismer, MacDonald and Varley painted some of their most iconic paintings on this landscape. The seventh member, Frank Johnston floats off across the horizon to start living in nearby Wyebridge where he was soon to leave the group. Above the group and above his home in Leith, Ontario is David Milne. In the late thirties Milne lived and worked in a small tarpaper cabin on Six Mile Lake, just inland from Cognashene. I have always thought of the smooth rocky landscape of eastern Georgian Bay as female in nature, so I have turned many of the islands and points of land into female figures.