Miller Brittain: When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears - Hardcover

Smart, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0864924836 ISBN 13: 9780864924834

Publisher: Goose Lane Editions, 2007

Synopsis

Miller Gore Brittain (1912-1968) had an unerring sense of structure and composition. In the early 1930s, at the Art Students' League in New York, he experienced the pivotal moment in American art: the shift from tradition to abstract expressionism. When he returned to Canada, the Group of Seven still defined Canadian art, and he burst upon the scene with emotion-filled drawings and paintings of the human form. Later, combining figuration and abstraction, he explored the limits of the body and the borderlands of sanity to express the depths of despair and the heights of ecstasy.

World War II interrupted Brittain's career and on his bombing missions he carried William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience with him. Blake's poetry, particularly "The Tyger," inspired the pervasive motif of Brittain's later career. At first a description of searchlights and shot-down aircraft, the star and spear motif later developed into iconic flowers and stems, heads and necks, sunbursts and smoke.

In this illuminating and provocative book, Tom Smart examines the sweep of Brittain's work, his progression from social realism to abstraction and surrealism, while Allen Bentley shows the profound influence of Blake's thought in Brittain's painting and drawings.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

In Miller Brittain: When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears, Tom Smart demonstrates the cohesion of Brittain's imagery. For the first time, he reveals the links between Brittain's early social realism and his later figurative abstractions and surrealist-inspired compositions.

Miller Brittain burst upon the Canadian art scene in the late 1930s with masterful, emotion-filled drawings and paintings of the human form. While studying in New York at the Art Students' League, he had internalized a pivotal moment in American art. Breaking free of traditional realist modes, a radical new generation of artists claimed that art should reflect the life of the artist and the condition of the subjects depicted. At a time when Group of Seven landscapes defined Canadian painting, Brittain challenged the establishment with his unerring sense of line, composition, and engaging human narratives. Later, combining figuration and abstraction, he explored the limites of the body and the borderlands of sanity to express the depths of despair and the heights of ecstasy.

During World War II, Brittain joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and became a Canadian war artist. During bombing missions, he carried William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience in his pocket.

In Miller Brittain: When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears, Smart illustrates how Blake's famous poem "The Tyger" inspired the pervasive motif of Brittain's post-war career: the combination of star and spear. Originally a depiction of searchlights and shot-down aircraft, it became, over the years, Brittain's iconic flowers and stems, heads and necks, sunbursts and smoke. Allen Bentley reinforces Smart's observations by showing the profound influence of Blake's theories on the entire body of Brittain's post-war work.

About the Author:

Tom Smart is the executive director and CEO of the McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, and the president of the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation. For seven years he was director of collections and exhibitions at the Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he developed an ambitious international exhibition program, and at the same time, he was appointed a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. He served as acting director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery from 1997 until 1999 and was curator of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, from 1989 to 1997. Smart is the author of nine books and catalogues. His most recent book is the critically acclaimed Alex Colville: Return, which moved criticism of Colville's works to a new intellectual level. His 1995 book The Art of Mary Pratt: The Substance of Light won the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Association Booksellers Choice Award, the Studio Magazine Award of Merit, and the Printing Industries of America Award of Merit. It was included in Great Canadian Books of the Century. Writer, philosopher, and art critic Allen Bentley considers William Blake the pre-eminent mythic poet of all time and Miller Brittain Canada's greatest mythic painter. As a professor of English at St. Thomas University, Bentley specialized in literary myth and symbolism. He has lectured extensively on Brittain's work.

About this edition

• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0864924836
• ISBN 13: 9780864924834
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 180