A Return To The Gallery

In December I paid a visit to the National Gallery of Canada, and so over the next few days we're going to be looking at art. The Canadian gallery section had been closed in my previous visits for a major reorganization, and opened again in time for Canada Day 2017. The concept of that reorganization was to take indigenous art from First Nations artists and blend them in with the more conventional European influenced canvases and sculptures from Canadian artists, as opposed to what had been before in the Gallery- a separation of the two. 

The first thing one sees upon entering is a large gallery space, with First nations artifacts grouped together before you.

This is one of the first works that greets the visitor. The artist lessLIE is from the Coast Salish First Nation, and titles this wHOLE w(((h)))orl(((d))). It is a 2013 acrylic incorporating traditional motifs and subjects- the person, salmon, wolves, and thunderbirds, in the spirit of what are called spindle whorls.

Armoured Whale is the title of this 2014 coloured pencil and black ink work by Tim Pitsiulak, an Inuit artist of the far north.

Here we have an example of blending of cultures- religious artifacts from churches are in the background here, while traditional First Nations attire are encased closer to the viewer.

The courtyard garden was also redone during this time. Here we have one view of it.

Theophile Hamel painted this 1854 oil portrait, Henriette Massue Le Moine. 

Cornelius Krieghoff has several works represented in the Gallery. White Horse Inn By Moonlight is an 1851 oil painting capturing a country inn and an arriving horse drawn sleigh in the night.

This is another Krieghoff, an oil painting done in 1858. The Chaudiere captures the Chaudiere Falls on the Ottawa River, not that far upstream from the Gallery, as it appeared in his time.

I leave off with Josephte Ourne, a portrait from around 1840 by Quebec artist Joseph Legare, showing the daughter of an indigenous chief.