Why go
Look for the difference between art made within living First Nations and Inuit traditions and older paintings that frame land through a settler viewpoint. The Group of Seven’s landscapes are influential, but seeing them alongside Indigenous work gives a fuller account of whose land and stories an image represents.
The full story
First Nations, Inuit and other Indigenous artists made art long before Canada existed. Their practices cross today’s borders and continue to change, including through the use of materials introduced by trade. Inuit carving in stone, ivory, horn and antler can depict daily activity, animals and stories; each work belongs to a particular artist and community. European-trained painters brought other conventions. Cornelius Krieghoff painted scenes of life in Québec, while Paul Kane represented Indigenous peoples in western Canada through his own nineteenth-century lens. In the twentieth century, the Group of Seven developed bold landscape painting that became closely associated with Canadian art. These works are worth seeing, but their prominence should not flatten the much older and more varied Indigenous traditions around them.
Useful to know
- At a gallery, read the artist and community labels before treating a work as an example of a broad regional style.