- Repository Number
- Location
- Artist
- Title
- Date
- Medium
- Technique
- Dimensions
- Description
- Provenance
- Inscription
- References
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SC0239-MNO-PA-1
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Newnham - Building A - Level 4 - Board Room A4508
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Sunset Ceremony
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1974
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Painting
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Acrylic on board
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94 x 75 cm
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In the early seventies, Norval Morrisseau often combined Ojibwa mythology or Ojibwa images and symbols with Christianity. Morrisseau’s early instruction was in the Catholic faith. His personal culture was a hybrid of western and native. As his biographer Jack Pollock points out, his art is, consequently, one of personal expression rather than a cultural mirror.
During the period of the sunset ceremony, native participants abstained from food and drink, painting their bodies in symbolic colours. Facing the sun, they danced on their toes, lacerating their arms and thighs with gashes or suspended themselves from a central pole by ropes and hooks through their skin. They continued dancing until they either fell unconscious or tore themselves loose, whereupon they would experience visions.
When viewed from a European perspective, the painting begs comparison to the crucifixion of Christ. Sunset Ceremony is thus an amalgam of mythology and Christianity. (David Phillips, Seneca Polytechnic)
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Purchased from Pollock Gallery.
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Signed right, in syllabics
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Spot this piece in the documentary film "The Paradox of Norval Morriseau" by the National Film Board.
- Item sets