Arthur Lismer enjoyed excursions into the Ontario landscape with his co-workers, including Tom Thomson and A.Y. Jackson, at the commercial design firm, Grip Ltd. He took memories of these landscapes to Halifax, where he served as principal of the VictoriaSchool of Art and Design. In a letter to Tom Thomson (1916), Lismer wrote, “its [sic] very like the Park & a lot like Georgian Bay. — Civilization seems to have passed on & left the country in all its wildness.” ¹

Lismer returned to Toronto after the war. In 1920, he joined J.E.H. MacDonald, A.Y. Jackson, and Lawren Harris on a sketching trip to Algoma, seeing a new, more rugged side of Ontario. Knowing that Lismer used small field sketches to create larger paintings in his studio, it is possible that Pine Trees and Rocks was inspired by this 1920 trip. It is also tempting to see in it the influence of Tom Thomson’s famous paintings of 1916-17, West Wind and The Jack Pine. This influence is most felt in Lismer’s compositional choices. In style, however, Lismer departs from Thomson. Rather than use fine daubs of paint to build up his surface, Lismer uses long brushstrokes and dark outlines made heavier by the depiction of a lead-coloured sky. He amplifies the mass of pine and rock, almost forcing his viewers to confront the physical challenges presented by the Canadian landscape and, in turn, by the task of translating this landscape to canvas.

1. Library and Archives Canada/Bibliotheque et Archives Canada, MG30 D284 ‘Tom Thomson collection’, Vol. 1 File 2, Arthur Lismer, Letter to Tom Thomson, January 31, 1916