Musée des beaux-arts de Mont-Saint-Hilaire
Virtual Museum of Canada

In the Spotlight

Charles Doyon, Le Clairon, August 27, 1948:
«One can go back over our literary and artistic past … but never, ever, has such daring and outrageous intransigence been seen in the unmoveable, indivisible land of Québec.»

Gérard Pelletier, Le Devoir, September 25, 1948: «M. Borduas spouts prophecies like an oracle, with total disregard for any demonstration or rational proof… Here’s someone who is no longer young, only partially Surrealist and even less honest.»

Le Petit Journal, August 15, 1948:«Our Automatists warn of Christian decadence and foretell the advent of the rule of instinct / Desire … Love … Vertigo. … The affirmation you have just read is the battle cry of a group of young Montrealers who, in this manifesto, recently published in 400 copies, pronounce a death sentence on “Christian decadence” and proclaim the advent of surrational Automatism.»

Montréal-Matin, August 5, 1948: «“Bombe automatiste chez Tranquille” (An Automatist bomb at the Tranquille bookshop”)

Artistic and cultural circles will be intrigued by the knowledge that the Automatist painters have just published a manifesto in which they make known their opinions on universal painting.

Automatism was a real success in Paris last year and the Québec public is already eager to visit an exhibition of this kind of artistic interpretation. It seems that the public will have this pleasure in the fall, but, in the meantime, Automatism wishes to present its human doctrine to humanity.

This manifesto, published in 400 copies, will be on sale exclusively at the Librairie Tranquille, at 67 Sainte Catherine Street West, as of August 9. The bookstore is also devoting a display window to Automatism to mark the occasion. A visit to the store will give you a good idea of the “Global Refusal” espoused by this group of painters.»

André Laurendeau, Le Devoir, September 27, 1948:
“Bloc-notes” (Notebook) «M. Borduas exalts instinct and wishes to suppress all moral and religious constraints – in short, he takes a position that is the polar opposite of our way of thinking in every area. The situation is clear: his attitudes inspire the most violent antipathy in us. But what is at issue here is not M. Borduas’ person: a teacher in one of Québec’s foremost schools has just been “suspended from his duties without pay.” … If a [cabinet] minister, on the basis of his authority alone and considering himself to be the sole judge, can intervene in the realm of higher education, what will prevent him from intervening in other cases and in the name of other motives?»

Roger Duhamel, Montréal-Matin, September 27, 1948:
“Les zélateurs d’une mauvaise cause” (Zealots for a bad cause) «If M. Paul-Émile Borduas, recently relieved of his teaching duties at the École du meuble, hasn’t completely lost his wits, he must surely regret the blind relentlessness of those who have taken it upon themselves to become his defenders for motives that are obvious to any moderately informed observer. Le Canada and Le Devoir have now entered the melee and raise a cry against the government that is responsible for such an assault on human freedom! If it goes on like this, they’ll soon be taking their case to the U.N.…»


Refus global and its consequences
François-Marc Gagnon
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Header image: Close-up of a page from Eternal Present.  Photo: Luc Bouvrette.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Screen capture from the interview of François-Marc Gagnon

Refus global and its consequences
François-Marc Gagnon

It is important to underline that Borduas was not only a great painter. He was also someone who put a lot of thought into the kind of art he was bringing to the scene, into how things had to be changed to gain acceptance, he talked about a renewal of awareness. As a professor, that meant that he questioned the strictly academic way of teaching art and that he gathered around him a circle of young artists who would manage to emancipate themselves from many of the era’s problems. It is in this climate that he produced Refus global in 1948. The Manifesto was very badly received by society at the time, first of all because it was a frontal attack on religion, something no one had quite yet dared to do. He wrote: “ ... to hell with the aspergil and the tuque.” Sometimes I have a hard time explaining to my students what an aspergil is as they have never seen one. And this is because Borduas said we must liberate ourselves from the control of the Church and open up to real life, to universal thought. Québec does not posses absolute truth, there are people outside Québec who have ideas. We must open ourselves to this. He compared Québec to a sort of ghetto, with pearls that would sometimes seep through the walls (in Refus global). These seeping pearls are poets like Rimbaud and Lautréamont, they are also the thinkers he was interested in.

The confrontation with journalists was unexpected; very few people sided with Borduas and Refus global. There were denunciations and Borduas lost his job. Their point was that someone who writes manifestoes like this should not be allowed to teach youth. The debate then took a political turn because it was Union nationale that kicked him out of school. The Liberals at the time declared that, for their part they would not have done this, they would not have intervened within the education system, that they would have talked to Borduas. They were gaining political capital through the events.

Caught in the controversy, Borduas became aware that people wanted to use him. He decided to finally be free to paint and returned to Saint-Hilaire: “You don’t want me anymore? Fine, I’ll be free at last to paint!”

Now lacking sources of revenue, his family was to experience a time of great tension.

Refus global was launched at a Montréal bookstore, the Librairie Tranquille, on August 9, 1948. The principal text was a manifesto denouncing social injustice; it called for the creation of a new culture based on the primacy of the senses rather than on reason – one based on liberty (“resplendent anarchy”) rather than obedience. The signatories questioned authority, particularly that of the Catholic Church, and called the Québécois a submissive people. There was strong reaction to the manifesto and, on September 4, 1948, Borduas was suspended without pay from his teaching position at the prestigious École du meuble (furniture making school) for moral and religious reasons. In the media storm that followed the launching of the manifesto and Borduas’ dismissal, a flood of newspaper articles were published.