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Norval Morrisseau: the Legend of the First Woodland Style Painter

	Norval Morrisseau, founder of the Woodland Style of Art, had this to say about the making of paintings: “I transmit astral plane harmonies through my brushes into the physical plane. These otherworld colours are reflected in the alphabet of nature, a grammar in which the symbols are plants, animals, birds, fishes, earth and sky. I am merely a channel for the spirit to utilize, and it is needed by a spirit starved society." (…)  A born Indian and a born artist, not necessarily in that order, Morrisseau subscribes to Eckankar, a faith with the basis on the belief in an eternal soul that, independent of the body, will eventually inhabit the spiritual plane.  Robinson wrote: “Norval believes the visions he transforms into paintings come from his abilty to travel out of body in a dream state to the astral plane.” (85, Robinson)  The mythical nature of his paintings are often concerned with the “Indian cosmology”.  They contain depictions of animals in various relationships with each other, people in ceremonial regalia, and mythological creatures.  The colors in his paintings often awe and sometimes heal their audience.  Morrisseau, for his self taught talent, has been called “Picasso of the woods”.  He has had sell-out shows across Canada.  Although infamous as an alcoholic, who had been through more than one official and unofficial treatment programs, he nevertheless triumphs as an artist and a shaman.  His works have widespread appeal to Canadian art lovers, even once winning the notice of popular Time magazine.  His story and his approach to art, unabashedly unique and inspiring, would appeal to art students and a contemporary discrimination free populace alike.  This is his story.

	The journey began, as notably portrayed in Marie Clements' Copper Thunderbird, on the beaches at the side of a lake.  Norval Morriseau was born at Sandy Lake Reserve in 1931; the place was a remote settlement in northwestern Ontario.  He said, “When I was a young boy, I used to make drawings in the sand at the side of the lake, and then watch as the waves dissolved them.” (81, Robinson)  His grandfather, Moses Potan Nanakonagos, was a sixth-generation Shaman.  Along with other elders, Potan told Morrisseau many stories of ancient beliefs and legends; later, Morrisseau would assimulate these Ojibwa beliefs into the subjects of his paintings.  During his teenaged years, Morrisseau fasted under the guidence of his grandfather; he received a vision that marked his departure from shaman to artist, granting him permission and protection to paint.  Morrisseau dropped out of school early on and never saw any art books growing up.  He was mainly influenced by cave paintings and Midiwewin scrolls, which were pictographic style records on birchbark thinly inscribed using deer antlers.  When he was nineteen, he became seriously ill.  Western medicine did not help.  A traditional medicine woman was called in and she granted him a new Indian name, Copper Thunderbird, which was believed to give new purpose and life to those who are granted a new name.  Shortly after, Morrisseau recovered.  He began to sign his paintings with the new name in Ojibwa syllabics.  In 1959, Morrisseau moved to Red Lake to work in a mine; it was here that Morrisseau met his first patron, Dr. Joseph Weinstein, who was a knowledgeable art collector who began to collect Morrisseau's work.  Weinstein also showed Morrisseau his art books in a library.  Around the same time, in 1960 and 1962, Morrisseau gave Selwyn Dewdney two manuscripts, which later became a collaborative effort and then a book, called Legends of My People, The Great Ojibway, published in 1965.  In 1962, Morrisseau also met Toronto art dealer Jack Pollock.  Pollock saw Morrisseau's work while he was visiting the area of Beardmore, and launched a commercial art show in Toronto; it was a sell-out exhibition at the Pollock Gallery.  In 1967, Morrisseau worked on a commission at Expo 67 in Montreal.  There, Morrisseau met the art dealer and writer Dr. Herbert Schwarz who published a book with illustrations by Morrisseau that told Ojibwa legends.  In the 1970s Morrisseau's works were exhibited in exhibitions across Canada.  In the summers of 1971 and 1972, Morrisseau and several other artists taught their new style of art to young Native artists in remote northern Ontario.  In 1973, Morrisseau was put into prison; according to the police, it was to forcibly keep Morrisseau from alcohol so he would live.  There, he was reported to have been well treated and was given a second cell to paint.  When he was released, Morrisseau featured in a film by the National Film board titled The Paradox of Norval Morrisseau.  His exhibitions during the 1980's and 1990's were often sell-outs.

	In regards technique and subject matter, Morrisseau famously stated that for inspiration, he goes to the House of Invention.  The House of Invention, according to him, is where all artists, sculptures, and musicians go at night during the hours of slumber to find the images and forms that they dedicate their living hours to recreating in their art work and their music.  In his essay, Travels to the House of Invention, Morrisseau wrote: “...There was a countertop with all kinds of buttons.  A computer was there... you start pressing buttons.  There are animals and paintings of any other thing you could think about.  They all appear on the screen... the way I put the colours down on the canvas, or paper or whatever medium I'm using to put on the colour, that's what I see there.” (16, Morrisseau)  The dream images that Morrisseau collects in his hours of sleep, during these dream states, he recreates when he wakes up and picks up a brush and canvas.  This is how it has always been for him.  Before his career began, he was a child drawing in the sand.  He would watch as the waves dissolved his images.  This was before Morrisseau was given the vision that freed him to become an artist.  Before the vision, he was censured by some elders and other Indians for painting images that retold the secret legends of the Ojibwa, stories only told within the tribes.  After he received his vision, he began to paint on bark, which was a traditional medium for Indians.  Midewiwin crolls, for exapmle, was made of bark.  He used watercolors, oils, and inks.  A little later in his early career, from 1958 to 1960, Morrisseau experimented with a variety of mediums, including plywood, hide, and kraftpaper, using crayon, oils, and any other medium he could find.  During this early period of works, Morrisseau was heavily influenced by the pictographical style of communication.  The influences of The Ontario Shield rock paintings and the Midewiwin scrolls were the primary sources of his work.  McLuhan wrote: “Both the pictographic images and syllabic signiature create a distinctive personal and tribal-looking style.” (50, McLuhan)  McLuhan also noted that between 1960 and 1963, which marked the formative years of Morrisseau's career, “one can sense the artist stepping back, and starting again; for while works from the preceding period employ a wide colour palette along with Western conventions of representation, his studies from this period favour black and brown primary and secondary contour lines on white, neutral, or construction-paper backgrounds.” (55, McLuhan)  That said of his studies, colors and palette have always been important in Morrisseau's works.  Morrisseau wrote: “Many times people tell me that I've cured them of something, whatever's ailing them.  But I didn't do anything.  It was the colour of the painting that did it... The healing is more colourful than it ever was...As for the colours, one was for the heart, one was for the bum, one was for the arms, one was for all the different kinds of sicknesses.  At first they weren't present, so I threw the colours on.  Red, greens, blues, yellow, magenta, orange, black, purples, and so on would splash on the image and I would move on.  I started bringing down the images, and flooded them with colour.” (17-19, Morrisseau)  The healing power in Morrisseau's use of colors is almost instinctive, a testament to his talent as an artist.  Describing Morrisseau's technique, Robinson wrote: “As a master colourist, he uses brilliant, often complementary, colours placed side by side, combined with shamanic symbolism and contains them with heavy, cloisonne-like black outlines.  He often encircles the images with interconnecting power lines.” (90, Robinson)  The works produced from Morrisseau's journey to the House of Inventions, full of color and life, could inspire all of us.

	Norval Morriseau said, “My art speaks and will continue to speak, transcending barriers of nationality, language and other forces that may be divisive, fortifying the greatness of the spirit that has always been the foundation of the Ojibwa people." (…)  A born artist, Morrisseau continues to inspire us in what is possible by transcending barriers that were at once set in traditions and in the minds.  He incessantly painted, using his imaginative travels to what he calls the House of Invention and using his own self taught and evolved techniques.  Robinson remarks in his essay that he “believed that Morrisseau was the first person in Canada and the United States to paint the images and legends of the Eastern Woodlands people.  It includes the Iroquois of New York State as well as the Cree, Ojibwa and Odawa people.  The taboo Norval had broken existed among all these peoples.” (86, Robinson)  As Robinson remarks on the amazing feat Morrisseau has performed in breaking the silence in regards anicent Ojibwa legends, Mcluhan also notes Morrisseau's amazing accomplishments as an artist: “Norval Morrisseau stands alone in his formal innovation and largeness of personal vision.  He was the first Indian to study seriously and to update his own cultural beliefs and translate them visually for contemporary Indian and non-Indian audiences.  In doing so, he became the first Indian to break through the Canadian professional white-art barrier.  His brilliance lies in his ability to break away from his own conventions, to constantly renew his vision.” (75, Robinson)  As a visionary who painted his dreams and a man who had gone through admittedly diverse life experiences, Norval Morrisseau will always inspire this and future generations in his unique calling and his courageous ventures onto new grounds.