The water's edge

Streams, rivers, and lakes occupy a central place in the natural world, an influence often reflected in various art forms. Many artists are fascinated by water in its many states. Where water meets land, the allure is intensified.

Water's appeal is certainly not limited to artists. The bank of a stream or river, the shores of a lake – touch a chord deep within us all, a chord that an artist can help us hear more distinctly. Such is the case with Hugh MacLennan's book The Watch That Ends The Night, where the writer has a revelation while resting by a wilderness lake:

In the early October of that year, in the cathedral hush of a Quebec Indian summer with the lake drawing into its mirror the fire of the maples, it came to me that to be able to love the mystery surrounding us is the final and only sanction of human existence. ²

People have always preferred to live where water and land meet. Our fascination with shorelines may have begun aeons ago when distant ancestors crawled from the water and began breathing and moving about on legs. There are practical explanations for our attraction to the water's edge. It provides access to water for daily needs, and proximity to convenient transportation. The boundary between land and water is one of the richest, most productive ecological zones on earth. Fish and other forms of marine life are born, grow, and live there. Food abounds for terrestrial animals and birds as well. Until recently in human history, most people hunted and gathered their own food, and so they too were drawn to the water's edge by the nourishment available there.

Today, few of us draw water or food directly from a river or lake, yet we are still attracted to the water's edge. And it is here that many of Canada's artists – painters, musicians, film makers, photographers, and writers of every kind – find inspiration. Though increased urbanization has drawn us away from the water's edge, it has also served to increase the water's magnetism. Perhaps people believe as Henry David Thoreau did that "in Wildness is the preservation of the World." ³

Whether contained by the shores of a northern lake, rushing in torrents down the slopes of the continental divide, moving majestically toward the sea, or crashing with fury on rock-bound coasts, the awe and creativity inspired by water are a global response. Canada, with an abundance of water, spawns a culture particularly rich in water imagery.

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