This painting Montreal from the Mountain Showing the Hotel Dieu, is part of an exhibition at the McCord Stewart Museum featuring vistas of the city in the 1800s by James Duncan, the first British artist to settle in Montreal, then Canada’s largest and most dynamic city.
Duncan documented Montreal’s development over a period of five decades, from 1830 to 1880. Exhibited together for the first time, these 100 or so works offer a unique journey into 19th-century Montreal.
The exhibition also includes a project called Mental Maps, a digital work created by art studio Iregular that uses artificial intelligence to reinterpret Duncan’s work via computer-generated images. They depict a composite view of a Montreal that no longer exists. Best way to understand? Watch this video. (turn on subtitles)
McCord Museum exhibition site here.
Image Credit, top of post: Montreal from the Mountain Showing the Hotel Dieu, about 1865, watercolour and touches of gouache over graphite on wove paper. Gift of Alan, David, John and Tom Law, M2004.29.1, McCord Stewart Museum
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Brilliant post! The paintings are precious to Canadian history.
I enjoyed “Mental Maps” video.
The old days meets the new days. Thank you!
I agree the combo of old and new is brilliant – lots of museums/galleries catching on to how not to make exhibitions static. Glad you enjoyed (sorry delay, just catching up)
No worries! I’m always behind in blogging. I do it for enjoyment (it’s not a job), so we are here when we are here!