Canadian Art

Joseph Légaré "Burning of the Parliament Building in Montreal" 1849

We spent a good amount of time in class discussing Joseph Légaré. His artwork is all very well done, though he copies the bases of it for the most part from an original print or sketch. What I found most interesting is that he was one of the earlier Canadian artists to paint in oils... When you think of the big time painters and really all European based artists of the time, the assumption is that they work in oils, not watercolors, and definitely not acrylics. At this early time in a new nation, however, taking a small water color kit for documenting landscapes was much more realistic that a big kit of oils. Légaré was a financially stable individual, and so this enabled him, apparently, to paint without the worry of saleability. Perhaps this is why he chose to branch away from watercolors, or maybe it was just because he was wealthy enough to afford them. Either way, it must have been a pretty exciting time - being one of the first "new world" Canadian artists, really setting the trail for where we now are.