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  #1  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 12:19 AM
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Canadian Gothic & Sub-Styles

So, I thought I would make this thread.

Canadian Gothic that largely refers to architecture. We know the buildings. We love them. But I am also thinking of the term in a more stylistic fashion: what does it mean to portray something as Canadian Gothic? You know, like in America, they have American Gothic and its pretty well established. A kind of foreignness in the rigid religiosity that burps with the fantastic and the morbid. This is embellished in what the authors of 1950s and 60s in Southern Ontario called Southern Ontario Gothic. There is also the folklore work done by Helen Creighton in Nova Scotia which focuses on the gothic aspects of Nova Scotia. I'm not too wise about what has been done in Quebec outside of architecture. I know some strains exist in British Columbia and the Prairies, but I thought I would start from there.

This thread is for all visual media pertaining to Canadian Gothic: photos, paintings, films and such. Share it.

I know this is a music video (and well known by now, I'm sure), but I thought the film portion was done such that captures visually the Southern Ontario Gothic style and does it so very well. I thought it would be the perfect example to kick this thread off.

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  #2  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 11:15 AM
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To me "Canadian Gothic" in literature would be about the seething passions hidden behind the repressed, respectable façade of our Presbyterian character. Madness, murder and mayhem are sure to result. At least that's my impression of how it plays out (in literature and sometimes in life) in Southern Ontario. All very Victorian and romantic. Sound about right? Canadian neo-Gothic architecture seems to capture it quite well in stone - as if buildings that look like they should be home to hunchbacks and crazed German princes somehow compensate for our staid day-to-day.
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  #3  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 12:11 PM
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Googled Canadian Gothic. It asked if I meant Southern Ontario Gothic. I can't find anything about it as an architectural style. It just keeps linking me back to Gothic Revival.

Is Hart House at the UofT a good example? Or CHUM City?

I'm sure I love the style, however it's defined. There isn't much that age that I dislike.
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  #4  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 12:17 PM
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kwoldtimer's post i think captures this.

in gothic architecture, the pointed arches nod to the concept of luminosity, and to the "mandorla" that surrounds the christ and the virgin mark (edit: mary!) in christian iconography, that almond (or otherwise, fertility-implying)-shaped light that surrounds them.

in the visual arts, gothic arches can partially hide things or lay shadows. there is the idea that baser things may lurk away from the upward point.

the gothic style in art and architecture is one that is hierarchical and symbolic of the escape from animality and the earth. in culture, and in ontario, it is restrained and ironic and deals still with the dialogue between the high and the low.

Last edited by kool maudit; Feb 23, 2015 at 6:31 PM.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 5:27 PM
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Originally Posted by kool maudit View Post
kwoldtimer's post i think captures this.

in gothic architecture, the pointed arches nod to the concept of luminosity, and to the "mandorla" that surrounds the christ and the virgin mark in christian iconography, that almond (or otherwise, fertility-implying)-shaped light that surrounds them.
The virgin Mark? Is this a result of some Vatican III that I haven't heard about?
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  #6  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 6:11 PM
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The virgin mark is a thing and not a person.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 6:32 PM
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The virgin Mark? Is this a result of some Vatican III that I haven't heard about?


yes, and you may not be pleased with the latest out of rome. for while they have conceded to their traditionalist base that it was not in fact "adam and steve", it was joseph and mark.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 6:43 PM
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Doesn't necessarily encompass the gothic part in a stereotypical way, but I do get the vibe walking through the Portuguese neighbourhoods in Toronto's west end. Every few houses you will see Catholic imagery. Either a statue or a virgin Mary tile on the outside wall beside the door. On some streets I would say at least 1 in 5 houses has some sort of Catholic iconography on it. Generally on very unassuming Edwardian semi-detached houses, often where the original brickwork has been covered up by new siding. It's interesting for sure, particularly in contrast to how ultra hipster the areas have become.
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  #9  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 6:59 PM
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Doesn't necessarily encompass the gothic part in a stereotypical way, but I do get the vibe walking through the Portuguese neighbourhoods in Toronto's west end. Every few houses you will see Catholic imagery. Either a statue or a virgin Mary tile on the outside wall beside the door. .
You see these tiles all over the place in Gatineau too. There are a number in my neighbourhood.
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  #10  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 7:11 PM
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Originally Posted by kwoldtimer View Post
To me "Canadian Gothic" in literature would be about the seething passions hidden behind the repressed, respectable façade of our Presbyterian character. Madness, murder and mayhem are sure to result. At least that's my impression of how it plays out (in literature and sometimes in life) in Southern Ontario.
Well said. I currently live along the outer periphery of "Alice Munro country," and am acquainted with several friends and neighbours over the age of sixty who could be characters in her stories. For example, one of my neighbours is a seamstress with the Festival who has never married, driven a car, or travelled much further than Kitchener in her lifetime. After years of frugal and very solitary living she has fully paid the mortgage on her own home, an Ontario cottage (an architectural style, not a cottage on a lake in Ontario), and titters at jokes or suggested ribaldry.

Titters with great enjoyment and pleasure, it should be clarified. She's more self-aware than Alice Munro's characters ever are, and I suspect she would even enjoy a discussion about how she might be an exemplar of a particular type of Southern Ontario Gothic persona. Because this is 2015, not 1935, after all.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 7:50 PM
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the southern ontario gothic thing is similar to the boston brahmin thing. both are fragments of england (britain, really, but england provided the imperial tone) transplanted in north america. the process wasn't a seeding, though: the transplanted segments did not contain the whole, and so evolved in a different direction.

both old-timey anglo canadians and new englanders can sometimes, in england, be surprised by the... earthiness of the english and of their country. north american wasps have a bit of that "plus catholique que le pape" thing going on in relation to england, or they did historically anyway.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 8:09 PM
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We got the Puritans. Pioneers are always more conservative than the "decadent" societies they leave behind.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 8:18 PM
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Originally Posted by kool maudit View Post
the southern ontario gothic thing is similar to the boston brahmin thing. both are fragments of england (britain, really, but england provided the imperial tone) transplanted in north america. the process wasn't a seeding, though: the transplanted segments did not contain the whole, and so evolved in a different direction.

both old-timey anglo canadians and new englanders can sometimes, in england, be surprised by the... earthiness of the english and of their country. north american wasps have a bit of that "plus catholique que le pape" thing going on in relation to england, or they did historically anyway.
Interesting.

I am no colonial but I must admit the first time I saw geeky people on the Paris métro wearing track pants, flannel hoodies and sneakers I was a bit taken aback. It wasn't something I expected to see there.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 8:20 PM
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Thanks, guys. Beautifully eloquent explanations.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 9:43 PM
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Well said. I currently live along the outer periphery of "Alice Munro country," and am acquainted with several friends and neighbours over the age of sixty who could be characters in her stories. For example, one of my neighbours is a seamstress with the Festival who has never married, driven a car, or travelled much further than Kitchener in her lifetime. After years of frugal and very solitary living she has fully paid the mortgage on her own home, an Ontario cottage (an architectural style, not a cottage on a lake in Ontario), and titters at jokes or suggested ribaldry.

Titters with great enjoyment and pleasure, it should be clarified. She's more self-aware than Alice Munro's characters ever are, and I suspect she would even enjoy a discussion about how she might be an exemplar of a particular type of Southern Ontario Gothic persona. Because this is 2015, not 1935, after all.
I get what you mean. I'm also from the "periphery of Alice Munro country". I suspect that those of us who grew up in small town Southern Ontario and find our way on a skyscraper and urban development message board belong to this periphery. It's also interesting that you mention the word "periphery".

One thing I always identified with Alice Munro's work is the tension of being aware of a more sophisticated, urbane world that you aspire to but can't quite belong to, and being bound to a provincial world, which although stifling, is actually full of people like that lady you know who are aware of their lot in life, and acknowledge and have made peace with it - but you can't. After I read Who do you think you are? as a young, twenty-something, I happened to visit a friend of mine who lived in Boston amongst other young Ivy League-educated professionals, and all I could think of was "these people are going to run the world one day, and I will not be among them." I spent the rest of the weekend walking around the streets of Boston as if I had learned that I was going bald.

I think being aware of existing on that periphery is a very Canadian concern. But I think it reaches a boiling point in Southern Ontario, because those two worlds are large enough to be self-sustaining. On one hand, you are closer to the magnetic pull of Toronto (which, itself, suffers from the same self doubts and aspiration to be something bigger and more worldly, even if it's already doing pretty well for itself), and the rest of the world, but at the same time, you can live a hermetically-sealed country life in the countless farming villages and market towns that pop up every dozen kilometers or so along the concession roads. Southern Ontario is the only area of the country (maybe Quebec's Beauce?) that is large and populous enough to sustain a full life within a rural bubble.

Last edited by hipster duck; Feb 24, 2015 at 2:40 AM.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 10:01 PM
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I happened to visit a friend of mine who lived in Boston amongst other young Ivy League-educated professionals, and all I could think of was "these people are going to run the world one day, and I will not be among them." I spent the rest of the weekend walking around the streets of Boston as if I had learned that I was going bald.
Wow. That's going to stick with me, oddly positively.

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One of my tattoos combines a stylized anchor, lighthouse, and puffin. The anchor and lighthouse are for the most eye roll-worthy cliche reasons (equivalent to roots and wings), but I wanted the puffin to express a similar sentiment to the one you've described. They're just so... inconsequential; beautiful, tiny little birds that could fit in your hand. Seagulls eat an average of five per day. But they get to live here. I wanted that sentiment on my body, to express that it's enough. And the love. And the sadness that comes from knowing your city will outlive you, and you won't get to experience its full life. "We grew up together, you and I, my city; The same blue sky above us inspired our dreams; Together, we dreamed beneath your hills; who will grow faster? Who will be more beautiful? And that boy grew into a man, as your hills are covered in snow. Your parks, like my hair, are grey. But that snow will melt away. Spring and youth will fill you then, without me. My only city."
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Last edited by SignalHillHiker; Feb 23, 2015 at 10:48 PM.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 10:25 PM
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Well said and very evocative of the Canadian condition, hipster duck. A small point of clarification: by "periphery" I actually meant that literally, in that I'm just down the road from Huron County, Alice Munro's muse.
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Old Posted Feb 23, 2015, 10:39 PM
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In that end, if such thing is to branch out to the prairies, it would be looking at the grotesqueness of the sense of conquering, whereby the dream of arriving - whether that be fresh new land or the pursuit for oil - is confronted by the nagging sense of home or whatever that nostalgia may be and growing dissatisfaction with how far one has traveled. And if we are only going by novels and such, I do get a sense out of that with Babiak's Garneau Block.
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Old Posted Feb 24, 2015, 2:21 AM
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I grew up in the epicentre of Southern Ontario Gothic: Clinton, Alice Munro's home and the heart of Huron County. Do I win a prize?

More seriously, I don't necessarily identify with it all that much as I grew up amongst Dutch expatriates and I don't really feel her stories ring as true for the experiences within that community.
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Old Posted Feb 24, 2015, 2:39 AM
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Well said and very evocative of the Canadian condition, hipster duck. A small point of clarification: by "periphery" I actually meant that literally, in that I'm just down the road from Huron County, Alice Munro's muse.
Thanks, rousseau. Well, I guess every Canadian is peripheral to something, whether literally or metaphorically.
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