Page 187 [187]
WORLD WAR II AND CANADIAN LANDSCAPES
Canadians in general as well as for those who participated in the events them¬
selves and their families and friends. Within Canada, interest in the country’s
military history has grown significantly over the past thirty years or so; the
decision to renew the official war art programme in 2001 was only one of many
expressions of this. Alongside this renewed interest in military history, war
art’s two functions have also met with increased interest. Appreciation of the
artworks themselves has grown, with steadily increasing numbers of new books,
articles and media treatments being devoted to them. And in step with this
increased visibility — in both senses of the word - of the artists’ work, more
and more Canadians have been going to visit the actual physical “sites of
memory” where they or those close to them fought, and when there, they are
turning to the visual testimony of the war artists to expand and enrich their
experience. Back in 1916 Max Aitken envisaged the Canadian War Memorial
Fund initiative as a means of enhancing appreciation of the Canadian contri¬
bution to what he saw as the greatness and glory of the British Empire. The
empire is now long gone, but the art works created in the successive projects
his idea launched now help Canadians to gain a deeper understanding of
Canada and of themselves as Canadians.
WORKS CITED
Abell, Walter. “Canadian Army Art Exhibition.” Documents in Canadian Art, edited by
Douglas Fetherling, broadview press, 1987, 100-104.
“About the Canadian Forces Artists Program.” https://www.canada.ca/en/services/defence/
caf/showcasing/artists-program/about.html, accessed 12 January 2014.
“Canada’s War Artists’ Perspectives.” https://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/artists/
indexeng.html.
Canvas of War, directed by Michael Ostroff, 2000. Sound Venture Productions. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?’v=7GM_l4cWuBE.
Brandon, Laura. “Dispatches: Grounders in Canadian Military History.” https://www.
warmuseum.ca/learn/dispatches/canadas-war-art/#tabs.
———. “Doing justice to history’: Canada’s Second World War official art program.”
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.warmuseum.ca/
cwm/exhibitions/artwar/essays/artandwar-canadas_2nd_world_war_art.pdf.
“Holocaust Art of Ava Bayevsky.” https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/
treasure/291eng.html.
Jackson, Alexander Young. À Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson. Toron¬
to: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1976.
Silcox, David P. Painting Place: The Life and Work of David B. Milne. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1996.
+ 185 +