Dr. François-Marc Gagnon, director of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky for Studies in Canadian Art at Concordia University in Montreal, has prepared two courses on Canadian art available on line through E-Concordia. Dr. Gagnon is internationally recognized as an outstanding senior scholar in Canadian visual culture. He is a teacher, researcher, writer, and lecturer, and a tireless promoter of Canada’s visual heritage. A dynamic and inspiring teacher, he taught at the Université de Montréal for thirty-five years. He was also a lecturer in Concordia’s graduate art history program.
Accessible, interactive and convenient, e-learning is perfectly suited to individuals located outside the city of Montreal. These two courses are available for credit or non-credit. Visit the E-Concordia website for more information at
http://www.econcordia.com
ARTH 271 (Lecture EC) Introduction to Canadian Art
Duration: 13 weeks
Program: Undergraduate, 3 credits
Instructor: François-Marc Gagnon
Description: This course introduces Canadian art, with a particular emphasis on Québec art and society in relation to the rest of the country. The lectures will examine painting in Québec and Canada before and after the emergence of Paul-Émile Borduas.
A pivotal Canadian artist, Borduas believed in an open society and painted accordingly. Through his abstract compositions Borduas precipitated the change in Québec culture from a closed society, represented by the Catholic religion and the French language, to an inclusive society premised on the defence of universal values. The course begins with an analysis of the figure in Québec painting to show how each figure symbolizes aspects of pre-modern Québec as it related to Canadian culture at that time. This includes the nun; religion; the figure of the habitant (the pioneer); the relation of the individual to the land; and the figurative construction of First Nations. Landscape, a persistent theme in Canadian art, will also be considered, especially the political discourse imbedded in images of the land, and how Canadian art evolved from realistic representation of the landscape to the abstract work of Borduas.
ARTH 272 (Lecture EC) From Realism to Abstraction in Canadian Art
Duration: 13 weeks (available in French or in English)
Program: Undergraduate, 3 credits
Instructor: François-Marc Gagnon
Description: This is an e-Concordia course, open only for students who are not registered in any program in the Faculty of Fine Arts. It is offered in both English and French versions. This course – an examination of the long path from realism to abstraction in Canadian art (and especially in Canadian painting) differs from ARTH 271 (“Introduction to Canadian Art”) by focusing more on questions of form and technical means of art-making rather than adopting a primarily theme-based approach to representational subjects such as landscape, portraiture, etc.Â
The course is divided into three sections, each consisting of related sub-concepts.
These sections and sub-concepts are:
(1) realism (imitation; double images; mirror images);
(2) symbolism (symbolism and representation; imitation versus representation; proportion; symbolic abstraction); and
(3) abstraction (art criticism and abstraction; abstraction and the unconscious; abstraction and geometry; and abstraction and the idea of the concept).
