Batchawana Rapid 1920

J. E. H. MacDonald made this painting, Batchawana Rapid, with thick strokes of oil paint in shades of ochre, red, green, and brown. Looking at this painting, I imagine MacDonald outside, probably in Autumn, trying to capture the force of the water. He's not blending the colors, instead he's laying them on the canvas, one next to each other, and letting our eyes do the mixing. I love the way the water crashes over the rocks, a real sense of movement and energy, right? You can almost feel the chill of the water and the dampness of the rocks. It reminds me of other landscape painters like Tom Thomson, and I wonder if they ever painted together, bouncing ideas off each other. It's so cool how artists keep the conversation going, even across generations. Painting’s not about answers, but an ongoing exchange.