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CANADIAN ART HISTORY:
Article I: Overview of Canadian Art and Artists
Article II: Canadian Art in Context
Article III: TBA
Article IV: TBAHistorical Context of Canadian Art Themes
As with all civilizations, knowing the history of a country or region will greatly affect one's understanding of its cultural development. Canadian art is no exception. The history of Canada, and the nature of the country's development, has had a major impact on its art over the centuries.
Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of landmass and has borders that span from the Pacific to the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic.
1 While the land was inhabited already by Native Americans before British and French colinization, Canada is usually referred to beginning with the much smaller colonies of Upper Canada (modern day Ontario) and Lower Canada (modern day Quebec). Upper Canada was closely connected to England because Canada was part of the British Commonwealth but also closely connected to what would one day be known as the United States of America, more so then Lower Canada which did not share its borders. When an amalgamation of the two regions was suggested in the Act of Union (1841), Lower Canada, which was mainly French speaking, refused to assimilate the way the English speaking politicians of Upper Canada wanted. Eventually, Canada adopted both English and French as its official languages to appease this significant portion of its population.
2 Canada was finally confederated as a country in 1867, but new provinces and territories continued to expand its borders for decades to come. In the process of expanding, Native Americans who had survived initial conquest were given the "choice" of either becoming Canadian and living on reserves or heading south and taking their chances with the Americans. This political process is often referred to as "death by red tape.
3The sheer size of Canada seems to allow for a high population, but the population is quite small by comparison (just over 30 million as of the year 2000). Most of the population lives near the American border in large to medium sized urban areas, with the rest of Canada's harsh tundra being sparsely populated by small communities that are few and far between. Winters in these Northern areas are long and harsh and some would say virtually uninhabitable. While Canada has shown some growth in population over the past century, most has been attributed to Canada's liberal immigration policy,
4 which has created a mix of cultures often referred to as a mosaic.
5Why is this history important to an understanding and appreciation of Canadian Art? The recurring themes in Canadian Art are:
1. The Canadian Identity
2. Isolation and its effect on individual social development
3. Interactions between Canadians and Native Americans
4. The tensions between French and English speaking Canada
5. The Canadian landscape/climate
We will explore some of these themes in upcoming articles, but lets start here and now with the first.
Theme 1: Identity
One major struggle in the minds of Canadians is the Canadian identity. Between Canada's beginnings as a colony of Britain and its development in such close proximity with the United States, there has been a constant question of what identifies a Canadian from his or her allies and neighbours.
Canadian art in its beginnings was quite derivative of European art. Early architecture, such as the Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral built shortly after the turn of the 19th century, illustrates the British roots of its architects William Hall and William Robe.
6 Painters like Joseph Legare meanwhile learned to paint by copying, and produced images of the Canadian landscape and history displaying a softness reminiscent of the European romantics.
7 As time progressed, however, and the turn of the 20th century arrived, artists were much more concerned with developing a style and voice perfectly Canadian. The Group of Seven, a group of painters known for their honest depictions of the rugged Canadian landscape, are often attributed with pioneering a nationalistic movement towards establishing the Canadian identity through art. Their paintings move away from the European romantic and expressionistic styles, creating a style, tone, and story all their own. The paintings generally display a rugged, untamed landscape against which the vulnerable subject, often a plant of some kind, must battle.
8The other issue of identity for Canadians is the fact that the population has such a mix of cultures. Besides the three main groups, English, French, and Native American, there are also large populations of Italian, Dutch, German, Chinese, Indian, South-East Asian, Jewish, Middle-Eastern, and the list goes on. With so many cultures mixed together, practicing their own beliefs freely and openly, how can one identify a single unique Canadian identity? This question is continually asked by artists, but few can pose an answer.
There have been a few notable persons who sought to answer the question. Margaret Atwood, in her popular 1972 book
Survival, stated that the dominating feature of the Canadian identity is just that--survival. It, according to Atwood, is the one thing all Canadians have in common, whether born into the challenge or brought in via integration and immigration. Robin Mathews countered her assertion, stating in his response titled
Survivalism that Atwood's idea was too simplistic. The debate over the Canadian identity is continually waged in literary theory.
1.
www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Can…2.
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/co…3.
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t…4.
www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Can…5.
archives.cbc.ca/society/celebr…6.
www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-r…7.
www.thecanadianencyclopedia.co…8.
www.mcmichael.com/collection/s…
