Text 5 : John O’Brian and Peter White

Question 1

Important notions

Answer 1

• The group of Seven
• Nationalisation of Nature in Canada (// wilderness & northerness).
• Contradiction between the local & the whole
• Past vs present : nation as an affiliation & nation as a collection of entities.

Question 2

Nationalisation of nature is ++ related to

Answer 2

wilderness & northerness.

Question 3

northerness

Answer 3

For them Canadianness was defined by…”
The North is relative from a geographical perspective.
Northern is in relation to the US and the UK = triangular relationship
But the Group of Seven represents the North as the South of Canada. They stayed close to the US border. The north is British Columbia and Seven Ontario : East Coast and West Coast not the in-between.
⇒ Limited & limiting representation of Canada as a country

Question 4

The group of 7

Answer 4

The group of 7 tried to produce an art for Canada. When they stopped painting in the 1920s their first exhibit was right after the WW1 when Canada tried to be fully independent because of what happened during WW1.

Question 5

Canada & landscape

Answer 5

Certain landscapes have been associated with national identity. The Canadian wilderness, the “bush”.. Landscape itself is a political unifier. This is obvious in war time propaganda. Ex: presenting a soldier & a landscape = soldier protecting the landscape and natural environment.

Question 6

Wilderness as a cultural construct contains prior aboriginal claim(?) to the land.

Answer 6

It presents the natural environment as being empty = **terra nullius **: uninhabited, uncultivated, non one’s land = justify property. According to Locke what justify property is cultivation and production. It has been mythologized as being empty so it appears as being empty.

Question 7

**terra nullius **

Answer 7

terra nullius : uninhabited, uncultivated, non one’s land

Question 8

According to Locke what justify property is

Answer 8

what justify property is cultivation and production.