Krieghoff in Context: Souvenir Paintings of the Habitant Community in Nineteenth-Century British North America

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Krieghoff in Context: Souvenir Paintings of the Habitant Community in Nineteenth-Century British North America
Abstract
As a professional artist, Dutch-born Cornelius Krieghoff (1815-1872) was dedicated to depicting the landscape and peoples of Lower Canada in the mid-nineteenth century. A significant amount of his work portrays the lifestyle of rural French Canadian peasants, or 'habitants', who farmed the Quebec countryside. The author points out that art historians refer to these paintings as souvenir objects purchased primarily by middle-to-upper-class British tourists, colonists and military officers. The author examines Krieghoff's 'habitant' paintings both in their historical context and through the lens of recent studies of tourism. In doing so, she posits that, as souvenirs, Krieghoff's paintings of the 'habitant' can be fruitfully interrogated in terms of the British tourist gaze. The author argues that the British viewed the 'habitants' as unique and exotic, as well as premodern, simple and boisterous. These characteristics, which were discussed in contemporary travel guides and newspaper articles, can also be seen in Krieghoff's representations. Thus, she contends, British tourists purchased images that matched their perceptions of the 'habitants'. In turn, she maintains, Krieghoff's paintings also acted as visual support of British dominance. Displaying images of those the British saw as different, and more specifically premodern, allocated the 'habitants' to a distant past and facilitated their imagined removal from contemporary society. The author argues that this also worked to emphasize them as non-threatening and unprogressive, which was in keeping with the colonizer's belief that, rather than challenging British authority, French Canadians actually needed British assistance. Even Krieghoff's emphasis on the boisterous nature of the 'habitants' was in keeping with this view; British opinion that the 'habitants' were unruly justified British rule.
Type
Master's Thesis
University
Queen's University
Place
Kingston, ON
Date
2006
Language
en
Citation
Samulak, Anna Regina Christine. “Krieghoff in Context: Souvenir Paintings of the Habitant Community in Nineteenth-Century British North America.” Master’s Thesis, Queen’s University, 2006.
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