Three Ontario art galleries turn to antiquities and Old Masters for inspiration

This fall, exhibitions at three major art galleries draw inspiration from centuries-old art and movements to enrich our understanding of the present.

At Art Gallery of Hamilton, the ancient poem Metamorphoses inspires a group show featuring works by such leading contemporary artists as Shary Boyle, General Idea and Kent Monkman. Some of the works in Metamorphoses: Visions of Antiquity in the Modern Era draw directly from Ovid’s epic stories, while others reinterpret the forms and ideas of the Greco-Roman era. The works are juxtaposed with classical works, including Marc Chagall’s 42-print marvel Daphnis & Chloé­.

“The exhibition’s contemporary works engage with pressing issues and ideas of today, but their inspiration reaches back 2,000 years,” says curator Amy Wallace. “The key takeaway of Ovid’s Metamorphoses – that change and innovation are inherent to creation – offers a timeless framework for understanding art. Bringing together ancient, modern and contemporary art, the exhibition explores transformation as an enduring artistic impulse.”

At the Art Gallery of Ontario, Jesse Mockrin: Echo features oil-painting remixes of classic works of art. By focusing her contemporary, feminist lens on particular aspects of Old Master paintings, the Philadelphia-based artist casts 17th-century works – all from the AGO’s collection – in a new light.

In many of her paintings, Mockrin zeroes in on violence against women, a theme rampant in Baroque art. Her sublimely rendered reimaginings are displayed alongside the originals, so visitors can connect Mockrin’s In mid-stream (2017) with Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents. The centrepiece of the show is The Descent (2024), a nearly eight-metre-long canvas that magnifies to life-size the struggling, miniature ivory figures of Ignaz Elhafen’s 1697 drinking vessel, Abduction of the Sabine Women. The exhibition runs until March 8.

At the same time Mockrin calls out the horrific truth of a patriarchal society, she’s also a “huge fan” of Baroque painting. “These artists were extraordinary at their craft,” she says.

Drawing inspiration from the same era, the powerful photography exhibition Rita Leistner: The Tree Planters, at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection gallery in Kleinburg, Ont. (until Jan. 5), uses dramatic lighting and classical composition to depict Canada’s planters in a heroic light. Leistner, a former planter and award-winning war zone photojournalist, captures “brightly lit twisted bodies in battle with the elements as the subjects struggle to return the ravaged landscapes back into forested vistas,” as Lenscratch puts it. Leistner’s portraits highlight the planters’ deep, often spiritual connection to the land. The luminous, almost mythic figures – all young, muscular men and women – become more than workers; they become symbols of hope, belief in the future and the power of perseverance.

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