Art in Canada, from Its Beginnings to the 1920s

• Week 1: From the beginnings to the flowering of New France
  We’ll examine some Indigenous artistic traditions and glance at the Viking remains in Newfoundland. We then proceed to New France and consider how its people developed artistic traditions that included both colonial emulation of the art of France and proto-national styles that are unique to New France itself. We will look at the topographical depictions of New France made by artists who accompanied the British armies or followed in their wake.
• Week 2: The Quebec tradition of church architecture
  “The church architecture of Quebec is probably the greatest single architectural treasure Canada possesses,” wrote Alan Gowans in Building Canada: An Architectural History of Canadian Life. Formed by a blend of medieval craft traditions from rural French villages brought by the habitants, and the classicizing Baroque style common to Paris brought by the elites, this odd combination, rare in France itself, became a template for church building in New France and later French Canada. We will study its evolution.
• Week 3: British North America
  The English-speaking population of what would become Canada was swelled by the success of the American Revolution. Defeated United Empire Loyalists emigrated in large numbers to the surviving remnant of British North America. Their culture was more colonial in spirit than that of the former New France. In art, they first adopted the Neoclassical style as it had been developed in Britain. As the 19th century wore on, however, all the artists of British North America, English and French alike, assimilated the artistic styles of Europe.
• Week 4: The art of the early Dominion of Canada
  In the last third of the 19th century and until the First World War, artists who came into their own after Confederation in 1867 developed painting, architecture and sculpture in a way that was integrated into larger Western tendencies, but with a Canadian accent, allowing for the regional differences that have always been a feature of Canadian life.
• Week 5: The Group of Seven and their friends
  The Group of Seven (which grew larger after its inception) began as movement before the First World War. Lauren Harris claimed it was “a movement before we pinned a name to it.” It drew its inspiration from two sources: the wilderness landscapes of the tragic Tom Thomson; and a 1913 exhibition of Nordic art in the city of Buffalo attended by Harris and J.E.H. Macdonald. Along with like-minded artists such as Emily Carr and the landscape painters of Quebec, the Group created a national style of Canadian painting.
• Week 6: The First World War and the Beaver Hall Group
  The First World War affected Canadian art by its content: the spectacle of the collapse of European civilization as it had developed in the century of relative peace after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The war furnished Canadian artists with new subjects for painting, architecture and sculpture, culminating in Walter Allward’s National Vimy Memorial. In the decade that followed the war, the Beaver Hall Group, more conservative in style but more modern in spirit than the Group of Seven, challenged the Group of Seven’s artistic dominance.

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Follow the chronology of making art Canada
• Appreciate the styles used by artists here
• Distinguish between original and metropolitan styles used by artists in Canada
• Recognize the regional differences in Canadian artistic development
• Identify artists generally considered to be the most important

• Lectures
• Participation in discussions
  
• Supplementary resources accessed through Canvas
  
• Reflective essay (applicable only to certificate students)

No textbook is required. We will provide all course materials online.