TORONTO — As investigators work to determine the cause of a devastating fire at a historic Toronto church, community members and art experts are mourning the loss of a sacred space that housed unique artwork by members of the Group of Seven.
The Sunday morning blaze caused massive damage at St. Anne's Anglican Church, a national historic site where"extraordinary" early paintings by three Group of Seven members and other prominent Canadian artists were installed along the interior in the 1920s.
"I almost felt sick to my stomach to see it," he said, adding that church members are"incredibly hurt and sad." Beyers said the community has not only lost a place of worship, rites and holiday celebrations – it has also lost"Canadian artwork at its very best." "It's almost hard to describe how beautiful the works were and how rare. It was the only religious artwork to my knowledge that the Group of Seven ever did," Beyers said, noting that the murals depicted important Biblical scenes and prophets.
"So much of their value really was the space where they were and their historical importance," he said."Their importance in the marketplace would be impossible to say only because they do differ from what the Group of Seven were most celebrated for, which were depictions of the Canadian landscape." Peter Coffman, an architectural historian at Carleton University, called St. Anne's church"a gloriously renegade" building in a"eulogy" posted on Monday.
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