A Rare and Forgotten Work by William Brymner
William Brymner (1855-1925), The Smithy, 1889, oil on canvas, 66.5 x 82 cm. MMFA, purchase, through the generosity of Roger Fournelle and Apricus Fund. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
Recently acquired thanks to the generosity of Roger Fournelle and a contribution from the Apricus Fund, The Smithy marks an important milestone in the 1880s production of William Brymner, who at the time was particularly interested in the skilled crafts and trades, and genre painting.
Jacques Des Rochers
Brymner exhibited a painting depicting this subject twice in the spring of 1889 – first at the exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA), held from March 15 to 30 at the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, and then at the Spring Exhibition of the Art Association of Montreal (now the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), held from April 12 to May 4. Several critics’ reviews of the Montreal exhibition offer convincing evidence of the link with the work the MMFA has acquired, including these mentions:
In The Smithy, [Brymner] shows his talent for realistic work, the smallest details of the smoke-begrimed shop are studied and defined, but the realism is carried a trifle far when a white board is depicted with its strong light in the foreground of a dark picture.
The Gazette, April 12, 1889.
The Smithy […], a clever study of the interior of a workshop. The smith stands with one hand on the bellows, while he stirs up the glowing fire with a rod of iron. The accessories are all filled in the most painstaking exactness, the whole scene though striking and lifelike, being finished with almost microscopic exactness […].
The Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial Gazette, April 13, 1889.
As these reviews point out, the scene depicts a blacksmith’s workshop of the day right down to the smallest detail: the anvil on the wooden block, a hammer and pincers, the vise on the worktable, a bucket of water for quenching, a poker and a bellows to stoke the fire… And yet the work’s realism does not reflect a desire on Brymner’s part to compete with the photography in vogue at the time. Like many of his Canadian colleagues with whom he studied in Paris, he was critical of this practice adopted by several of his contemporaries. He himself was more interested in working on the motif, and in exploring the play of shadows and light and the construction of the image. A painting belonging to the artist’s estate, titled A Smithy, Near St. Eustache, which was shown in the memorial exhibition dedicated to Brymner in 1926,1 suggests that the inspiration for The Smithy came from a workshop in this town located in the Lower Laurentians.2
Brymner showed an early interest in the skilled crafts and trades. In the summer of 1883, he painted With Dolly at the Sabot-makers in Pontaubert, Burgundy. Displayed at the Art Association of Montreal (AAM) and at the RCA in 1884, this painting was acquired that year by the National Gallery. With its narrow palette of browns, greys and blues, it ushered in a series of works themed around traditional crafts and trades. In terms of composition, the artist creates a sense of depth by means of the paned windows in the corner of the room as well as the lines formed by the wooden planks on the walls and floor, the workshop tables and benches, and the shelves.
William Brymner (1855-1925), With Dolly at the Sabot-makers, 1883, oil on canvas, 38.1 x 46.2 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased in 1884. Photo NGC
In the summer of 1885 in Baie-Saint-Paul, Brymner painted The Weaver, which was exhibited at the Ontario Society of Artists in 1886. A multi-paned double casement window – a characteristic feature of traditional French-Canadian architecture – opens onto the landscape. The window acts as a source of light, bringing the silhouetted figure into focus and projecting contrasting tones of dark and light onto the surfaces. The lines of the floorboards and the various posts of the loom reflect Brymner’s recurring interest in using intersecting and overlapping lines in the composition of his paintings, as is the case in The Smithy.
William Brymner (1855-1925), The Weaver, 1885, oil on canvas, 61 x 63 cm. Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, purchased in 1929. Photo MNBAQ, Idra Labrie
Few paintings from Brymner’s early days as an art teacher are known to us (he became director of the AAM’s art school in 1886). As such, The Smithy offers us precious insight into the artistic practice of this eminent figure of the Montreal, Quebec and Canadian art scene.
1 Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by the Late William Brymner, C.M.G., R.C.A., presented at the AAM from January 30 to February 14, 1926. It should be noted that The Smithy, which did not sell at the RCA in 1889, did not attract a buyer at the AAM either.
2 Brymner, who had a workshop built in Saint-Eustache in 1905 with his friend and AAM colleague Maurice Cullen, was likely already familiar with the region.
