The Tangled Garden

In March 1916 MacDonald exhibited The Tangled Garden at the Ottawa Society of Artists. though derided by art critics of the day, it was a fairly conventional post-impressionistic painting of sunflowers, one that has much in common with Van Gogh's treatment of the subject from nearly forty years before but which Canadian critics rejected. Accustomed to the smooth blending and muted tones of Canadian academic art in the style of the Canadian Art Club, the critics were taken aback by the brightness and intensity of the colours. "An incoherent mass of color," wrote an anonymous reviewer for the Toronto Star. Hostile art critics thereafter singled out MacDonald for attacks in the press.