- 111
Alexander Young Jackson 1882 - 1974
Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 CAD
bidding is closed
Description
- Alexander Young Jackson
- The Somme River at Picquigny
- signed lower left; titled, dated 1912 and inscribed NJG #812 on the reverse
- oil on canvas mounted on board
- 53 by 64 cm.
- 20 7/8 by 25 1/4 in.
Provenance
Ernest Jackson, the artist's brother
By descent to the artist's great-nephew
Loch Gallery, Toronto/Calgary/Winnipeg
Private Collection
By descent to the artist's great-nephew
Loch Gallery, Toronto/Calgary/Winnipeg
Private Collection
Catalogue Note
Jackson’s early experiences in France, when he travelled and painted with his friend Albert Robinson before the war of 1914-18, left an indelible mark on his subsequent work as an artist in Canada. This canvas of the Somme River in the little town of Picquigny, on the western edge of Amiens in northwest France, is large and ambitious – an excellent testament to the subtle and intelligent debt Jackson owed to the Impressionist painters who had preceded him.
Jackson has chosen a complex angle for his subject, but with the river acting like a mirror, he is able to define the shoreline of buildings and still fill the large expanse of water in the lower part of the painting in ways that are both varied and intriguing. Seen through the prism of Impressionism, the rectangular buildings and the fluid river melt into one overall image. The colours throughout are delicate and sun-filled, amorphous, and they flow effortlessly and seamlessly from water to plaster to sky.
Little did Jackson know when he painted this work that only a few years later he would be back in the area as a soldier, be wounded in battle, and then become a war artist in France.
Jackson has chosen a complex angle for his subject, but with the river acting like a mirror, he is able to define the shoreline of buildings and still fill the large expanse of water in the lower part of the painting in ways that are both varied and intriguing. Seen through the prism of Impressionism, the rectangular buildings and the fluid river melt into one overall image. The colours throughout are delicate and sun-filled, amorphous, and they flow effortlessly and seamlessly from water to plaster to sky.
Little did Jackson know when he painted this work that only a few years later he would be back in the area as a soldier, be wounded in battle, and then become a war artist in France.