Abstract

Lucius R. O'Brien was a well-known Canadian landscape painter in the second half of the nineteenth century. Active in the promotion of art in Ontario, he served as vice-president of the Ontario Society of Artists from 1874 until 1880, at which time, in recognition of his leading role in Canadian art, he was appointed as first president of the Royal Canadian Academy. O'Brien produced poetic, reserved scenes of nature that attest to his own upper-class Victorian background and the consequent firm belief in the rightness of Canada's position within the Commonwealth. Dependent on the British cultural presence, O'Brien nevertheless was substantially affected by contemporary American art. The Hudson River and luminist paintings provided the stylistic models, and the American vision of the land as a metaphor for new world strength and purity suited his own patriotic concerns. Victorian culture shaped O'Brien's response to the world, and American art provided a meaningful stylistic source. This thesis will examine the ways in which these major influences affected O'Brien's interpretation of the Canadian landscape