William Brymner, CMG

Order of St Michael and St George

The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

 (December 14, 1855 – June 18, 1925) was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 art teacher and a figure and landscape painter.

Early years

Born in Greenock

Greenock

Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, the son of Douglas Brymner

Douglas Brymner

Douglas Brymner was a Canadian politician, journalist, civil servant and archivist.Born in Greenock, Scotland, Brymner immigrated to Canada in 1857 with his wife and son settling in Melbourne, Lower Canada...

 the first Dominion Archivist and Jean Thomson, he moved with his family to Melbourne

Melbourne, Quebec

Melbourne is a township of 950 people, part of the Le Val-Saint-François Regional County Municipality in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec.-External links:*...

, Lower Canada

Lower Canada

The Province of Lower Canada was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence...

 in 1857. In 1864, his family moved to Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. Following architectural studies in enrolled at the Académie Julian

Académie Julian

The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1878 where his instructors were William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau was a traditionalist; in his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.-Life and career :William-Adolphe...

 and Tony Robert-Fleury

Tony Robert-Fleury

Tony Robert-Fleury was a French painter.He was born just outside Paris, and studied under his father Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury and under Delaroche and Léon Cogniet....

. Both of his teachers, in Paris, were famous exponents of 'Grand manner

Grand manner

Grand Manner refers to an idealized aesthetic style derived from classical art, and the modern "classic art" of the High Renaissance. In the eighteenth century, British artists and connoisseurs used the term to describe paintings that incorporated visual metaphors in order to suggest noble qualities...

' naturalism. During this period at the Salon he became interested in the work of Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier who was already popular with the French public.

Later life

Brymner specialized in domestic figure scenes and avoided large historical subjects. Two Girls Reading of 1898 displays a "careful treatment of light and an understanding of the force of a simple emphatic composition". In 1886 he settled in Montreal after staying in Paris "on and off for almost seven years". Two years prior to leaving Paris, at Runswick Bay, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, he completed A Wreath of Flowers.

Many members of the Beaver Hall Group

Beaver Hall Group

The Beaver Hall Group was a Montreal based assemblage of Canadian female painters formed in May 1920 by artists who had met while studying art at a school run by Art Association of Montreal ....

 studied under William Brymner, a prominent Canadian artist who encouraged them to explore new modernistic approaches to painting.

Recognition and Awards

In 1883, he was made an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts

The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts is a Canadian arts-related institution founded in 1880, under the patronage of the Governor General of Canada, Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne. Canadian landscape painter Homer Watson was a member and president of the Academy...

 (RCA). He was elected vice-president of the RCA in 1907 and president in 1909. In 1916, he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George

Order of St Michael and St George

The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

.