In the House of Paul-Émile Borduas
The River of Time
New Horizons
New horizons
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Three stained glass windows from the church of
Xivray-et-Marvoisin, France.
Photo : Luc Bouvrette.
In 1928, having lost his teaching work, Borduas obtained a grant with the help of Ozias Leduc and was able to go to Paris for two years to study religious art and stained-glass techniques. His stay in the City of Light brought him into contact with the work of Modern painters, like Picasso, Matisse and Renoir, and enabled him to form a more up-to-date idea of artistic production at the time.
The trip was made possible through the generosity of Ozias Leduc and Olivier Maurault, a historian and Sulpician priest. The latter was among those who took care of Borduas’ financial needs during this period. In the journal Borduas kept, there are several entries mentioning the arrival of cheques, and the two men maintained a steady correspondence for the duration of the voyage.
Borduas arrived in Paris in November 1928 and by December 1 he had already received a letter from Maurault:
« I’m happy to know that you are with your friend Gilles Beaugrand at Canada House. If you can manage to live there and eat three meals at day on one thousand francs, stay there. It may be that the House is too far away from the studios: you will be the judge. I’m sending more than one thousand francs, because Christmas time is coming. »
On arriving in France, Borduas enrolled at the Ateliers d’art sacré, a Parisian religious art school, for training in church decoration by Maurice Denis. Borduas had not been in Paris for more than a few days before he went to meet Jean Hébert-Stevens, a master glass artist born in Picardy who shared a stained-glass studio with André Ruiny in Paris. Borduas decided to enrol at this studio as well. He wanted to gain skills in new mediums in the hope of having access to more varied types of employment and obtaining more contracts. Such diversity in ways of expressing artistry corresponds to one of the major qualities that would mark the future Automatist movement, that is, its multidisciplinary character. Not very much is known about Borduas’ production during his first stay in Paris. The few stained-glass windows and sketches that have survived are often partial.
Brochure of the Ateliers
d'Art Sacré in Paris.
Paul-Émile Borduas Archives,
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
At the Ateliers d’art sacré, he met Pierre-Claude Dubois, another student who was considerably more advanced in his training. Under Dubois’ supervision, Borduas worked on frescoes in the village of Rambucourt in Lorraine. It was through him as well that Borduas obtained a contract to decorate the church at Xivray-et-Marvoisin and to produce its stained-glass windows. At first, Borduas was a little disconcerted by Dubois’ method, which put him off somewhat, since it “left too much up to chance.” It might be asked whether this first contact with a freer approach to production did not have an effect on Borduas so that, unconsciously, he began to lay the foundations of his later artistic vision. This contact may also have influenced the thinking he developed a few years afterwards in his teaching and his relationship with the Automatist group, as well as in his own pictorial production. It seems that his experience with Dubois and the team at Rambucourt was an enriching one. Borduas enjoyed the practical work involved and appreciated being with the artists, masons and architects, who helped him to learn and develop both intellectually and technically.
In the summer of 1929, he did a bit of travelling in France. He spent some time in Xivray-et-Marvoisin before visiting other regions, such as Brittany, where he “admired the landscape, read and above all” put “ a bit of order in my mind.” He wrote that, “…while I have seen much and heard much, I have, on the other hand, had little time to think. I’m expecting to gain many benefits from this bit of vacation time.”
At the end of the summer and throughout the fall of 1929, he was busy with the contracts at Rambucourt and Xivray-et-Marvoisin. He did not return to Paris until Christmas time. Borduas felt that he still had much to learn and tried to stay as long as he could in this city, which was the art capital of world at that time. From January 1930 to his departure for Canada in June of the same year, Borduas engaged in a marathon of visits to art galleries, where he became familiar with Modern European painting in particular. He saw numerous exhibitions presenting the work of Picasso, Renoir, Monet and Matisse. He absorbed this work, commented on it, made critiques of it and admired it. He drew precious lessons from it and eventually positioned himself in relation to it.
Header image: Stained glass window from the church of Rambucourt (detail). Photo Luc Bouvrette.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
New horizons
In November of 1928, at the age of 23, Borduas arrived in Paris to study religious art and stained glass techniques.
He worked on church decoration projects in Lorraine,
a region in the North-East of France, under the direction of a colleague, Pierre-Claude Dubois.
Rural life in France at this time probably reminded him of that in his native village of Saint-Hilaire.
He became familiar with an environment...
endowed with a rich cultural and architectural heritage.
World War I had devastated the countryside. Destroyed by bombs,
the churches of Lorraine lay in ruins.
In the mid-1920s, they had to be reconstructed if towns and villages were to recover.
Churches were rebuilt anew and given new interior decorations.
One of the projects that Borduas worked on was decorating the Rambucourt Church with frescoes for the walls and stained glass for the many windows.
The frescoes have sadly disappeared under layers of paint.
Only the stained-glass windows remain of the work done by artists and craftsmen in Borduasʼ time.
However, it is not known exactly how much Borduas was involved in making these windows.
A few documents mention his involvement in working out how stained-glass windows were to be made and in managing their fabrication.
Dubois was always available.
He supervised Borduasʼ work from a distance,
visited the Paris studios to check the stained-glass windows and gave instructions for their installation.
As in Rambucourt, the church in Xivray-et-Marvoisin had to be rebuilt,
and Borduas was entrusted with its interior decoration. He was thus involved in every aspect of managing and carrying out the project.
With the advent of Art Nouveau at the end of the 19th century,
stained glass once again became a living art. Artists explored the possibilities offered by shapes,
colour and light. This art form surely provided Borduas with a different vision that he could,
perhaps unconsciously,
return to and apply in his later work.
Paul-Émile Borduas was at first a little disconcerted by Duboisʼ method of working,
since he found it left “too much up to chance.”
One canʼt help wondering if this early contact with a freer vision of artistic creation...
isnʼt related to the thinking he developed a few years later, both in his teaching methods...
with the Automatist group and in his personal production.
Inside the church of Rambucourt, France
Photo : Luc Bouvrette
«At Rambucourt, I met another artist, a sculptor who was helping with the exterior decoration of the church; his name is Albert Dubois. All these young artists are known to Monsieur Leduc, I believe. Dubois is also very interesting and together they teach me a whole lot of things when we are at the table – they to chat and I to listen, to ask questions and sometimes to say that I am not entirely of their opinion. The least young of them is Dubois, who is excessively kind and good to me, but perhaps not the most talented. (I’m speaking to you in total confidence, as if I were talking to myself…) But to show you how obliging he is, he has agreed to entrust me with all the decorations for the church at Xivray-et-Marvoisin, one of the prettiest country churches of all. Royer is the architect for the project (He’s another of my friends). There’s just a vague draft of the project, which I’ll take a look at and can carry out with complete freedom (Dubois will just come to see me from time to time to give me some feedback) while supervising a few masons and painters who will do all the undecorated parts. Just imagine how excited I am, my dear Monsieur Maurault.»
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