Book excerpt: Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century is a survey of the richest, most controversial and perhaps most thoroughly confusing centuries in the whole history of the visual arts in Canada - the period from 1900 to the present. Murray shows how, beginning with Tonalism at the start of the century, new directions in art emerged - starting with our early Modernists, among them Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Today, Modernism has lost its dominance. Artists, critics, and the public alike are confronted by a scene of unprecedented variety and complexity. Murray discusses the social and political events of the century in combination with the cultural context; movements, ideas, attitudes, and styles; the important groups in Canadian art, and major and minor artists and their works. Fully documented, well researched and written with clarity and over four hundred illustrations in both black-and-white and colour, Murray’s book is essential for understanding Canadian art of this century. As an introduction, it is excellent in both its scope and intelligence.