In the House of Paul-Émile Borduas
The River of Time
Transformation of an Artist
Paul-Émile Borduas, A miracle of Saint Vincent Ferrer, c.1932,
oil and gouache on embossed paper.
Collection of Renée Borduas. Photo MBAM, Brian Merrett.
© Paul-Émile Borduas Estate / SODRAC (2013)
Following Borduas’ 1929-1930 stay in France, where he encountered a different world and became acquainted with the work of European Modern artists (Picasso, Renoir, Monet, Matisse, etc.), he was tempted to explore new ways. The youthful period spent in Paris had a major impact on him and would mark his work and his thought.
The early 1930s corresponded to the years of the Great Depression and everybody, even the clergy, was affected by the economic recession. As a result, church decoration projects were relatively small and quite rare. In 1932, Borduas painted the Stations of the Cross for the church at Saint-Michel-de-Rougemont. But times were hard and Borduas was disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm for his religious art. Consequently, he turned to teaching and found work as a part-time drawing teacher in five Montréal elementary schools from 1933 to 1939. As well, in 1941, he organized drawing classes for children in his own Montréal home. In 1937, he obtained a position at the prestigious École du meuble de Montréal, a school in which students took courses in fields like art and architecture, as well as furniture making. There he taught drawing and decoration. It was in this context that he met some of the future members of the Automatist group.
Being around children, interacting with young people and teaching all led him to ponder the conditions required for creation. Children’s freedom and the liberty of expression that he found in their drawings gave him insights into an aspect of creativity that fascinated him. In the text Ce destin, fatalement, s’accomplira (This destiny inevitably will come to pass), he wrote: « You have already been told and I repeat – the man who is incapable of grasping the beauty of a child’s drawing, or the beauty of Picasso’s Woman with Rooster, will never be able to grasp the true beauty any of the plastic arts from any time nor any school. »
Borduas found a confirmation of this artistic vision, inspired by the spontaneity that he observed in children, when he read André Breton’s texts on Surrealism.
The relation he built with his students at the École du meuble became very important both to him and to them. For Borduas, teaching should ideally be based on respect for the individual and the development of personal expression through painting. From 1942 onward, he organized informal meetings in his studio, inviting artists and intellectuals, including some of his students. With time, he became a true mentor for certain of these people. The relationship between master and pupils grew ever stronger and eventually evolved, so that in 1946 ten of his students became official members of the Automatist movement, created in 1942. The Automatist core consolidated its position and the group took part in several artistic events over the years. However, Borduas’ influence and the social and artistic positions he took were not well viewed by the furniture school’s principal, Jean-Marie Gauvreau. As soon as Refus global came out in August 1942, Gauvreau relieved Borduas of his teaching responsibilities. The artist took measures to contest his dismissal, but the right-wing government of Maurice Duplessis muzzled the press and confirmed the principal’s decision, effectively black-listing Borduas as a teacher.
Ever since he had abandoned religious painting and devoted himself to teaching, Borduas’ production had become gradually more abstract. Particularly after 1942, this tendency manifested itself with increasing clarity as the artist discovered and explored the possibilities of the subconscious and automatic writing, which eventually led to the idea of Automatism in painting. Freedom of expression was primordial for Borduas and he could not countenance having to satisfy an order or to fit into a predefined framework: « Nothing is sadder than painting under the dictates of some gentleman who desires something quite foreign to what you were born for. »
Little by little, Borduas moved away from academic and institutional moulds towards an artistic vision shaped by the subconscious and the spontaneous affirmation of dream-like sensations. He sought to free his production from any conscious control on the part of his thoughts and to let his imagination guide his hand on the canvas. Borduas’ paintings corresponded no longer to a representation of reality but rather to the forms and colours of an unreal world.
Borduas cultivated a need to learn and to go ever further in his experimentation and understanding. He tried to apply the notion of liberty in artistic expression to that of liberty in rethinking the meaning of his life. This fusing of his production and his philosophy was in part what led him to elaborate, write and publish the Refus global manifesto, in synergy with the other members of the Automatist group.
Header image: Borduas teaching at the Montreal school of furnishing (c. 1942). Gilles Lapointe collection.
Paul-Émile Borduas writes:
«...to show my paintings to the critics, to know what it is possible to know, to recognize fellow feeling, to live by my painting or die by it.»
«My dream of going some day with my dear little family to live in France has fled in the face of the moral difficulties of these troubled times.»
«More and more, as well, I realize how deeply my activities over the past few years have affected me. For years, I thought myself free of any nationalistic spirit, but today I find myself thinking that if I can attain a certain international standing, it is only by continuing to put down roots in the environment where I have been working for several years. So, leaving the country at this time seems impossible to me. In any case, it is impossible that I should take the first steps myself.»
© Musée des beaux-arts de Mont-Saint-Hilaire, 2014.
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