Landscape 1935

Prudence Heward made this landscape painting with oil on canvas. Look closely and you’ll see the artist's hand in the application of paint, with thick brushstrokes building up the forms. It’s a classic medium for landscape painting, associated with the long history of European art, yet Heward uses it in a distinctive way. Notice how the paint itself models the hills and valleys. The materiality of the oil is essential to the image. The textures, weight, colors, and forms all contribute to the overall effect. You can almost feel the weight of the earth, the sun beating down. Heward was part of a generation who wanted to create a distinctly Canadian art, rooted in the land. She was conscious of the labor and resources involved in extracting and processing pigments, and how these materials are tied to wider issues of labor and consumption. Thinking about the painting in terms of its material and the process of its making helps us understand its cultural significance, challenging the traditional idea of fine art as something separate from the world around us.