It feels ridiculous to say, but abstract painting has come to the Northwest Territories. Ridiculous, because its arrival is a tad late. 

Although abstraction has no concrete birth date, it gained traction in Western art more than 150 years ago, when Monet and friends broke the rules and wrecked art forever.  The French art critic Albert Wolff called the Impressionist painters "lunatics." A magazine review from the time said their art was so vulgar, visitors "invariably left with inflamed eyes." 

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