ARTH 370 Studies in Canadian Art: Land and Nature in Historical Canadian Art and Design

• Thursdays, 11:45 am - 2:30 pm
• Blended course
• Instructor: Dr. Vanessa Nicholas

This course takes a critical look at how land and nature are represented in historical Canadian art and design, with a special interest in how the British settler population wielded visual and material culture to project their economic, scientific, and cultural ideals onto Indigenous territory during the long nineteenth century (1780-1920). In addition to considering the critical questions raised by the landscape views in Canada’s painting and photography traditions, the course will examine how land, animals, and plants figured in the dress, ceramics, homecrafts, and interior decorations that were fixtures in nineteenth and early twentieth century Canadian life. Our case studies and analysis will be informed by environmental and settler colonial art histories and will be in consistent dialogue with Indigenous artists, designers, and perspectives.