Abstract

The art of Alex Janvier and Norval Morrisseau successfully transcended the aesthetic norms of Canadian culture in the 1960's and 1970's. Their respective works synthesize indigenous North American arts to forge a new definition of painting by artists of Native ancestry, which acknowledges the artistic traditions of Europe. Morrisseau and Janvier reacted to the political and social climate of this nation through their respective expressions. However, each artist's contributions to Canada's artistic identity have been excluded from the our modern art history as a result of a problematic Western discourse, which has remained active for over a century. Fortunately, this situation is gradually changing as First Nations people such as Morrisseau and Janvier assert their beliefs within the context of Canada's true cultural diversity. Morrisseau's spiritual outpourings and Janvier's symbolic declarations are communicated through paintings, which have profoundly reshaped Native and non-Native approaches to art and culture during the twenty-year (1960-1980) focus of this thesis.