Art in Canada
Canada is among the nicest place to retire mainly because of its rich history, heritage, culture, and art. Many elder citizens apply for citizenship in Canada mainly because of many reasons.
The art of French Canada in the 17th and 18th centuries was associated with the Catholic Church. Church decorations and religious wood sculptures were particularly typical.
In English Canada, motifs from nature were popular, e.g. mountains and waterfalls. Gradually, heroic battle motifs and portraits of generals and heads of Indians became commonplace. Two artists who became very popular were Paul Kane and Cornelius Krieghoff.
Art of Canada
From the late 1890s, art was influenced by French Impressionism. Around 1910 a reaction to this art took place in Toronto, and some painters joined the group who wanted to create a new and unique Canadian art. They were mainly landscape painters and chose motifs from the wilderness. Their design language was figurative and we find parallels in, among other things, Norwegian national romantic and symbolic painting.
The Canadian group of painters, who had much in common with the group of seven, had strong expressionist qualities. Emily Carr from British Columbia created images with motifs from Native American culture in the West Coast Islands.
Modernism
Modernism has long struggled to gain a foothold in Canada. The breakthrough first came in Quebec in 1948. Paul-Émile Borduas was at the head of an avant-garde movement, the so-called automatism. This was a definitive breakthrough for French-influenced surrealism and abstract art in Canada.
From the 1950s, Toronto has become a metropolis filled with art. In the 1960s and 1970s, Canada experienced a new nationalism that grew out of the desire to emancipate from the United States. The nationalist artist group around Jack Chambers and Greg Curnoe became dominant. However, modern Canadian art has been heavily influenced by American art, especially by Jackson Pollock. A prominent internationally oriented and well-known artist was Jean Riopelle (1923-2002).
Inuit Art
It mainly consisted of sculpture in stone, bones and the like, and later graphics. The largest collection of Canadian Native American art can be found today in the National Museum of Man in Ottawa. Particularly well known are their carved totem poles, of which only a few have survived.
Native American, Inuit and Asian art have also been a major inspiration in modern Canadian art. In the 1960s, Canadians started the KSAN project, which was about revitalizing Native American art, including literature and music. Old traditions, legends and myths were revived and the oldest known patterns and styles of wood carvings and other visual arts were sought.