ODORAY MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY J.E.H. MACDONALD

J.E.H. MACDONALD (1873-1932)
Odoray mountain (3,137 m- 10,292 ft)
Canada (British Columbia)

In Mont Odoray, 1930, Huile sur carton, 21,6 x 26,7cm, Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa

The mountain
Odaray Mountain (3,137-m - 10,292 ft) is a summit located west of Lake O'Hara in the Bow Range of Yoho National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. Its nearest higher peak is Mount Huber, 3.86 km (2.40 mi) to the east. The standard climbing route follows the southeast glacier and ridge starting from Elizabeth Parker hut. Pronunciation sounds like the two words "ode array". Odaray Mountain is composed of sedimentary rock laid down during the Precambrian to Jurassic periods. Formed in shallow seas, this sedimentary rock was pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the Laramide orogeny. The first ascent of the mountain was made in 1887 by James J. McArthur, and he named it Odaray which is the expression for "many waterfalls" in the Stoney language. Other reports have it being named in 1894 by Samuel Evans Stokes Allen for the Stoney Indianword for "cone". However, it is possible that McArthur only ascended the lesser secondary summit cone (2965 m) now known as Little Odaray which is southeast of the true summit. The mountain's current name became official in 1952 when the Geographical Names Board of Canada rescinded the name Mount Odaray.

The artist
James Edward Hervey MacDonald RCA was an English-Canadian artist who initiated the first major Canadian national art movement. He was the father of the illustrator Thoreau MacDonald. n 1895, MacDonald took a position as a commercial designer at Grip Ltd, an important commercial art firm, where he further developed his design skills. In the coming years, he encouraged his colleagues—including future artist Tom Thomson—to develop their skills as painters. In 1920, MacDonald co-founded the Group of Seven, which dedicated itself to promoting a distinct Canadian art developed through direct contact with the Canadian landscape. The other founding members were Frederick Varley, A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and Franklin Carmichael. MacDonald had worked with Lismer, Varley, Johnston, and Carmichael at the design firm Grip Ltd. in Toronto. Together they initiated the first major Canadian national art movement, producing paintings directly inspired by the Canadian landscape. Every summer beginning in 1924, MacDonald travelled to the Canadian Rockies to paint the mountainous landscapes that dominated his later work. By this time he had become somewhat alienated from the rest of the Group of Seven, as many of the younger members were beginning to paint in a more abstract manner.  Today, MacDonald is viewed with general admiration for his art, with one writer commenting, "no Canadian landscape painter possessed a richer command of colour and pigment than J. E. H. MacDonald ... His brushwork is at once disciplined and vigorous. His best on-the-spot sketches possess an intensity and freshness of execution not dissimilar from Van Gogh."

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau