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

A Source of Inspiration

The white veils of the cliff-castle. Composition made up of white, green and black vertical streaks.

Paul-Émile Borduas, The white veils of the cliff-castle, 1949,
oil on canvas. Private collection.
Photo MBAM, Christine Guest et Brian Merrett
© Paul-Émile Borduas Estate / SODRAC (2013) Borduas’ artistic production, life and memories are full of references to the climate, the seasons and his native land. Every spring, the rebirth of blossoming apple trees gave rhythm to his life. The passage of time and the seasons shaped his vision and influenced his work. The subjects he chose for his art – whether the spring, the fall, snow or apple trees – often reflect his roots. Like the cycles of warmth and cold that distinguish the seasons, Borduas’ production had periods both of intense activity and of great languor. The extremes he experienced can be sensed in his paintings. Even when he was thousands of kilometres from Saint-Hilaire, the themes he dealt with were frequently linked to the marked differences in Québec’s seasons.

Saint-Hilaire’s apple trees, the river and the mountain also inspired themes that often appear in the artist’s production. The legend of the three fairies who lived in a cave (the “Grotte des fées”) and the many other imaginative stories related to Mount Saint-Hilaire influenced his vision of the world. In his musings, writing, art and even his recollections of happy times spent with his family, Borduas often made a connection between this natural world and artistic production. Nature was an undeniable source of inspiration and throughout his life he continued to refer to it over and over again.


Saint-Hilaire
François-Marc Gagnon
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Borduas was deeply touched by his physical surroundings, especially the apple orchards for which Saint-Hilaire is known. Nature and the themes that come from nature were part of Borduas’ conception of life and art. When writing about the subconscious and surrationalism, he used the apple as a metaphor: «A child, one of the fruits of love’s desire, is related to the desire that gives him being only through surrational magic.
In mad love, one’s delirious desire is the total possession of the object of one’s love, a possession that demands an equivalent giving of oneself. The happiness that is desired is boundless, undefined.
Each pleasure, no matter how violent, is merely a means.
A child is born of one of these means.
The apple tree makes its flowers by itself. But the flowers would be powerless to produce their fruit without the fortunate chance of pollination.
Apples are surrational graces for the apple trees. Here are objects that are non-preconceived, generous and spontaneous.»

The mountain was an endless source of inspiration for Borduas. In several of his paintings, it is clear that the “Grotte des fées” and the lofty Dieppe cliff haunted his mind. The mountain became a place of mystery and discovery. It became for him “a fortunate chance of pollination,” inspiring emotions and sensations that he reproduced or transcribed in his work.

Image d'entête : The Couture guest house, 270, Waterfront road, today «chemin des Patriotes» (SHBMSH, Armand Cardinal collection, 3-8.4)

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Screen capture from the interview of François-Marc Gagnon

St-Hilaire
François-Marc Gagnon

The first thing we associate with Borduas is certainly Saint-Hilaire. Indeed, his work is marked by the influence of its landscape – the mountain, the river, the plains, these large natural features. The way Ozias Leduc interpreted them surely influenced Borduas. When they met, Ozias Leduc already knew the local geology and was interested in scientific issues. One could ask if the mountain was truly a volcano or only a little hill ... but there are signs of Leduc’s Saint-Hilaire to be found throughout Borduas’ work. For example, the famous cave, “Le Trou des fées” (The fairies’ cave), there is a watercolour with that name; or the cliff ... When Borduas makes reference to a mountain, it is always Mount Saint-Hilaire.

Borduas was in his natural environment in Saint-Hilaire, his parents came from there, Leduc was nearby and nature was ever present and always interesting. And I think perhaps that the fact he lived outside Montréal, the distance he put between himself and the young Automatists, his somewhat more private life – that all this perhaps allowed him to paint more. Few are aware that Borduas’ artistic work was done in adverse conditions, since his position as a professor meant he was often teaching and had little time to paint. There is a huge difference between the total number of works produced by Borduas over his lifetime, let’s say for the sake of the argument one thousand seven hundred (1 700) works in total, and Riopelle’s or some other artist’s production of forty thousand (40 000) works or so. Borduas died young, but he also worked in conditions that forced him to find freedom to create, it wasn’t easy. So, to live in Saint-Hilaire, to be at a certain distance, this allowed him to spend less time socializing, giving interviews and participating in formal events.

One can wonder what Borduas’ relation to his environment might have been. I don’t know if he went for walks, but he was often on the Richelieu River. Since the Borduas family was not very rich, fishing was a great activity, it solved the problem of finding a meal. And at the same time, I think Borduas really liked being alone. Riopelle has said that when they were together they barely discussed painting, they went fishing and talked about fish.

N° 47 or Le trou-des-fées. Composition of a grotto with a pink frame and a blue, violet, grey and black background.

Paul-Émile Borduas, N° 47 or Le trou-des-fées, 1942, gouache. Private collection.
© Paul-Émile Borduas Estate /
SODRAC (2013) In a text entitled “Le Surréalisme et nous” (Surrealism and ourselves), Borduas wrote: «Whatever the case may be, any direction imposed on love can only destroy it. Any chosen action is good only if it prunes. Cut off the apple tree’s dead branches; cut out the middle branches and let the sun warm the tree’s core. Let us be ardent, attentive and maybe the fruit will be more perfect.»

In the text “Au printemps dernier” (Last spring) (1943), he related how he got ready for a talk he had to prepare: «A magnificent summer opened up in my immediate future. I would have all the time I needed to prepare myself – that’s what I thought I would do as I set out to conquer the beauty of nature. The countryside awaited me, with its thousands of incomparable lessons. Relieved of citified burdens, I let myself be penetrated by light… Slowly baking under the radiant suns of summer, I hoped to be perfectly done by November. In my rapture, I mixed up everything, to the point of preferring this light to intellectual illumination anywhere. From one depravity to another, I let myself go so far that I even preferred contemplating the objective beauty of all things to contemplating abstract beauty or ideal beauty. In this state of extreme forgetfulness, fine days and less fine days went by, without a moment’s doubt about my working method.»