Arts, Colonial Art

In the colonial period, culture was heavily influenced by French and British models. Colonists brought their culture with them and tried to reproduce it in the new land. Simplified and practical versions of European styles of architecture, craftsmanship, and music date from this period. Colonists were also confronted by new landscapes and new peoples, producing a strong urge to describe and portray them. Thus colonial writing and painting about Canada were largely documentary, including explorers’ accounts of their travels, missionaries’ reports, and naturalistic portrayals of landscapes and ways of life. Typical of these are paintings of the St. Lawrence valley in the 1840s by Cornelius Krieghoff, paintings of the Metis people by Paul Kane, and literary descriptions of pioneer life by Susanna Moodie. All of this early art was infused by European sensibilities.