With the Current, 1892

With the Current reflects William Raphael’s love of the outdoors—a passion he pursued throughout his career. Floating gently on the waves, two people revel in the sunshine and the tranquillity of a red canoe. They sit back to back, the woman fly fishing while the man, cigarette in mouth, reads his newspaper. Their posture and the colour of their clothes—one in white sitting upright, the other in black and semi-reclined—provide contrast, as do the woman’s elegant hat and the man’s simple yarmulke, a reference to his Jewish heritage. The bright red of the boat also stands out against the verdant landscape. These differences are echoed in the artist’s pictorial approach: the canvas shows a range of brushstrokes, from the most sustained academic technique in the treatment of the two figures to the heavy, visible brushstrokes that build up the background. Despite these dissimilarities, the work as a whole is harmonious. The peaceful, even intimate scene is set against a natural backdrop, with the expanse of dark water in the foreground doubling the couple’s image in a stunningly rendered reflection.

Raphael travelled extensively in the summer months. He came back from each trip with several drawings in his sketchbooks and many pochades (quick sketches), which would later prove invaluable in his work. During the summers of 1891 and 1892, the artist visited Richmond and Otterburn Park, both in Quebec, as well as Long Island and Norfolk in the United States. Along the way, he collected details of trees and water features—all motifs that could be put to good use in future paintings produced in his studio.

Before he painted With the Current, Raphael had already tackled the subject of people on a canoe trip several times, including in The Boating Party, 1876, and in a sketch made at Sainte-Rose in 1884. In these works, however, the figures are merely details intended to enhance the landscape by amplifying its scale. In With the Current, Raphael reversed the formula: nature lost its primacy and became a setting for the true subjects of the work, a man and woman captured in a moment of serenity. Drawing on landscapes he had visited many times, Raphael creates an intimate composition, closing off the background with dense, dark vegetation. In this way, he manages not only to focus attention on the duo but also to cut them off from the world, leaving them alone in this suspended moment.

Apparently pleased with this work, Raphael produced a variant, Throwing the Bait, River St. Charles, Quebec, in 1895. In this later version, the mountains in the background are bathed in a bluish light. The boaters, alone in their own world, are a poignant metaphor for Raphael’s late-career period, when he withdrew from the art world in search of calmness in both his life and his subjects.