• Aboriginals in North America
  • Beast Literature
  • Canadiana.1
  • Dances & Music
  • Europe
  • Fables and Fairy Tales
  • Fables by Jean de La Fontaine
  • Feasts & Liturgy
  • Great Books Online
  • La Princesse de Clèves
  • Middle East
  • Molière
  • Nominations
  • Posts on Love Celebrated
  • Posts on the United States
  • The Art and Music of Russia
  • The French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Voyageurs Posts
  • Canadiana.2

Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: Nature

The West Wind

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Music, Nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Beethoven, Canada, godliness, Nature, Ontario, The Group of Seven, The West Wind, Tom Thomson

The West Wind by Tom Thomson (Photo credit: WikiArt)

The West Wind by Tom Thomson (Photo credit: Wikiart.org)

The “West Wind” is a major character in The Song of Hiawatha. It is Mudjekeewis, Hiawatha’s father, presuming he has a father.

In April 2012, I published a post featuring Tom Thomson‘s “West Wind” (1917). The “West Wind” is also a major character in the art of Tom Thomson (5 August 1877 – 8 July 1977). I sense similarities.

Thomson died before the Group of Seven was formed. However, given the subject matter of his paintings, his style as an artist, not to mention his lifestyle, that of a woodsman, he is considered as a precursor to members of the Group of Seven, arguably Canada’s most renowned group of artists. However, his lifestyle and the very title of the painting featured above also suggest cultural kinship with the Amerindians of the Central Woodland, thus identified by Stith Thompson.[1]

Tom Thomson settled in Algonquin Park in 1914, where he worked as a firefighter and guide, but lived in a cabin, devoting most of his time to his art. Thomson died during a canoeing trip. He was only 39. His premature death has served to transform him into a legend. The legend, however, is his art.

Landscape by Tom Thomson 1915
Landscape by Tom Thomson 1915
Evening, Canoe Lake by Tom Thomson, 1916
Evening, Canoe Lake by Tom Thomson, 1916
Pine Island, Georgian Bay by Tom Thomson 1916
Pine Island, Georgian Bay by Tom Thomson 1916
The Jack Pine by Tom Thomson, 1917
The Jack Pine by Tom Thomson, 1917

Testimonials to a virgin past about to be destroyed for profit are numerous. Climate protected the Central Woodland. It was cold and therefore uninviting to loggers. But ‘improved’ harvesting technologies won the day. The Arctic is melting down.

There’s land left, but too much was harvested in a way that could not allow regrowth. It was harvested in the name of profit, and the prospect of profit numbs reason.

Humans kill. They kill in the name of profit. They also kill in the name of God. They kill.

Manabozho created land and whatever land had been lost to a flood, he created again. Such was his godliness.

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Tom Thomson’s “The West Wind” (14 April 2012)

____________________

[1] Stith Thompson, The Folktale (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1977 [1946]), pp. 306-307.

—ooo—

Glenn Gould plays Beethoven‘s Piano concerto No. 1, Op. 15, Largo

the-west-wind-1917© Micheline Walker
3 September 2015
WordPress

45.403816 -71.938314

Micheline's Blog

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Europa

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,477 other followers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Language Laws in Quebec: Bill 96
  • From the Rurik Dynasty to the first Romanov
  • Uvalde: Analysis Paralysis
  • The Second Amendment to the American Constitution: a Misunderstanding
  • The Rurikid Princes & the Tsardom of Russia
  • The Decline of Kievan Rus’
  • Ilya Repin, Ivan IV and his son Ivan on 16 November 1581, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
  • Ukraine’s Varangian Princes, its Primary Chronicle, the Russkaya Pravda …
  • Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a Cossack Hetman
  • Ruthenia vs Ukraine

Archives

Calendar

June 2022
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930  
« May    

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • WordPress.org

micheline.walker@videotron.ca

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker

Social

Social

  • View belaud44’s profile on Facebook
  • View Follow @mouchette_02’s profile on Twitter
  • View Micheline Walker’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View belaud44’s profile on YouTube
  • View Miicheline Walker’s profile on Google+
  • View michelinewalker’s profile on WordPress.org

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker
Follow Micheline's Blog on WordPress.com

A WordPress.com Website.

  • Follow Following
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Join 2,477 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: