20世纪早期的几十年里，加拿大和世界各地都发生了艺术、经济和社会转型。从多伦多开始，一群年轻的现代艺术家，包括汤姆·汤姆森（Tom Thomson）、劳伦·哈里斯（Lawren S. Harris），以及不列颠哥伦比亚省的艾米莉·卡尔（Emily Carr），希望为这个正在形成自己文化身份的年轻国家创造一个新的绘画词汇。他们远离城市生活，探索加拿大的风景，描绘崇高的远景、不朽的河流、大湖周围的古老森林、强大的落基山脉和北极苔原，决心摆脱欧洲风格的传统。他们的画作共同想象了一个神话般的加拿大，广阔而粗犷，增加了他们国家日益增长的民族自豪感。本书包括绘画、草图、照片、电影剧照和纪录片材料，研究了加拿大现代主义的语言。还包括一些文章和采访，提供了当代加拿大人看待工业对自然的影响、民族身份问题和现代加拿大风景画的观点。这本图文并茂的书批判性地回顾了加拿大艺术史上的现代主义。

The early decades of the 20th century were marked by artistic, economic, and social transformation in Canada and around the world. Starting in Toronto, a group of young modern artists, including Tom Thomson and Lawren S. Harris, and Emily Carr in British Columbia, desired to create a new painting vocabulary for the young nation coming into its own cultural identity. They turned away from city life and explored Canada s landscape, painting sublime vistas, monumental rivers, ancient forests around the great lakes, the mighty Rocky Mountains, and the arctic tundra, determined to break away from European stylistic traditions. Together, their paintings imagined a mythical Canada, expansive and rugged, that added to their country s growing sense of national pride. Featuring paintings, sketches, photographs, film stills, and documentary material, this catalog examines the language of Canadian modernism. It also includes essays and interviews that offer contemporary indigenous perspectives on the impact of industry on nature, issues surrounding national identity, and modern Canadian landscape painting. This generously illustrated book critically reviews Canada s modernism in art history.