Backwoods Ontario woman blazed artistic trail
IT HAPPENED IN ONTARIO
Clara Mountcastle — a pioneer in the foundation of Canadian literature and art — was born in the woods of the Huron Tract of Upper Canada, near where Clinton is today.
In early Ontario’s days, families were much larger than today although the high incidence of childhood death by disease and accidents meant many children did not survive. Clara, the third surviving daughter of 12 children, was born in 1837.
Her family was considered “well-born” back home in London, England, but they struggled in the Upper Canadian forest, trying to eke out a living.
Even so, Mountcastle grew up with a solid and enduring interest in the arts. Unlike more formally trained artists, she chronicled life in the wilderness. As she evolved as an artist and a writer, she drew on her experiences growing up in Upper Canada. Her book recounts how she became turned around while bringing in cattle at the end of a day. In an early poem, A picture of the past, Clara recalled growing up in a log cabin. It was her writing for which she became best known, although she may have broken more ground as a painter. For that, she can thank her mother, who provided her with an early education heavy on arts, and later her uncle, an architect. She received a touch of polish at a private girls school for a term.
With this rudimentary beginning, Mountcastle taught at a girls school in St. Catharines before returning to Clinton, where she followed her interest in art while teaching art at the public library in the 1860s and 1870s.
She entered her works in competitions, winning two first prizes and three seconds in the 1870 Provincial Exhibition. Other water-colours were exhibited at the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. (One of the leaders of the RCAA was Lucius O’Brien, born and raised in the woods of Simcoe County, not far from Barrie.)
Mountcastle was invited by the secretary to submit her work for the Ontario Society of Art exhibition, but the male judges rejected her work, saying they preferred something more European, resembling French Impressionism.
In response, she wrote a poem called The
“They looked upon my work and found No misty stretch of foreign ground, But trees and bushes hung around With richness of our scenery.
“And said ‘We have no need of these, These Autumn-tinted glowing trees And vast tumultuous inland seas. The French have no such imag ’ry.’”
Of course, her work was a precursor to what would be wildly popular Canadian landscape art.
Toronto publisher George Maclean Rose was initially critical of Mountcastle’s art as lacking polish but soon became a fan of her writing, publishing her first two books — a poetry collection, and a novel. She was also published in magazines such as
A social critic, Mountcastle assailed the judgment society places on single women (she never married) with her essay
Rose later praised her writing: “No poet living or dead ever wrote in such varied style.”
Mountcastle died in Clinton in 1908. Her written work is considered an important base for Canadian literature and her paintings blazed a trail followed by the men of the Group of Seven.