Sold for: $31,250

PROVENANCE
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Lois Darroch, Bright Land: A Warm Look at Arthur Lismer, 1981, page 24

After a visit to Algonquin Park in 1914 with Tom Thomson, Arthur Lismer obtained a 9 x 12 inch sketch box for painting out of doors. Lois Darroch might have been describing this jewel of a sketch when she wrote, “With the smaller size he could paint astonishingly fine miniatures...every detail of distance clear and technically magnificent.” The crystalline clarity of the light, the deep blue of the sky traversed by an army of bright white cumulus clouds, and the view off into the far distance where the clouds seem to originate are all extraordinary. Lismer compressed so much into this image, and with such rich colour and clarity of atmosphere, that one could speculate on the influence of Thomson in this painting. Another outstanding aspect of Farmer's Fields is the strong sense of motion created through the emphatic lines of the ploughed fields, raked across by shadows, contrasted by the upward direction of the floating clouds. This is the kind of painting that the Group of Seven became known for—boldly painted on the spot and full of the brightness of Canadian atmosphere.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars