History is Painted by the Victors 2013

Editor: Here we have Kent Monkman’s "History is Painted by the Victors," a mixed-media piece from 2013. The landscape feels very romantic, almost idealized, but then there are these figures… it feels… complicated. What do you see in this piece? Curator: It’s a powerful re-contextualization, isn't it? Monkman, a Cree artist, directly engages with the historical genre of landscape painting. How does placing his figures – Indigenous people, in a state of leisure – disrupt your understanding of traditional landscape art and its role in colonialism? Editor: It’s like he's inserting a different narrative, one that was intentionally erased from those grand, sweeping landscapes. Are you saying it’s a commentary on who gets to be represented and how? Curator: Precisely! Consider how landscape painting, especially during the 19th century, was used to promote the idea of the "empty" or "available" land, ready for colonial expansion. By including Indigenous bodies, Monkman challenges the romantic vision of an uninhabited space, and questions the very notion of whose history gets told, and who is left out. He is positioning Indigenous people as active participants within the Canadian landscape. What implications might arise by highlighting the historical treatment of the Indigenous body within the nation’s consciousness? Editor: So it's not just a beautiful scene, but a statement about power, representation, and the erasure of Indigenous presence. The title now has an ironic edge, as he offers another perspective on Canada’s history. Curator: Exactly. It invites a dialogue about whose gaze constructs history and whose stories are deemed worthy of representation. Editor: I’ll never look at a landscape painting the same way again! Thanks for showing me how much more there is to see here. Curator: My pleasure. It's through these critical interrogations that we can begin to decolonize our understanding of art history and the world around us.