Day 34: National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec

The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec has a number of extraordinary features that add up to a high quality art experience.

The architecture is so sophisticated that I am surprised that the architects—Charles Dorval and Louis Fortin—are not more prominent internationally. Like many museums in the United States, this museum started with an imposing neoclassical structure in 1933. Later the museum acquired the adjacent building, which had previously served as the Quebec City jail. Dorval and Fortin designed a new entrance pavilion that connects the two historical structures; it opened in 1991. 

The most amazing part about the entrance pavilion is that it is largely hidden—perhaps the smallest footprint I've ever observed. You don't really get the sense that the two old buildings on either side are connected. The modest entrance signals a small and intimate place, whereas, in fact, the sprawling museum has a lot of gallery space. Much of the new pavilion is underground, under existing rises in the landscape. Above ground is only a four-armed skylight and a glass tower, and you don't see that structure unless you get an aerial view.

Architects: Charles Dorval and Louis Fortin, 1991

Internet grab showing the skylight and the low hill over the entrance pavilion.

It came as a great surprise to me, during my circuit of the museum, to discover a row of narrow cells, preserved from the days when one of the buildings was used for a jail. How great to repurpose a jail, especially a handsome stone building, as an art museum.

One of a row of cells in repurposed city jail.

The theme of this museum is the history of the fine arts in Quebec. Since Quebec was originally settled by the French in the 1600s, the earliest art was brought by them from France for the adornment of their churches. They had quite a large and pleasant collection of this type of work.

The Altarpiece of the Church of L'Ange-Gardien

Pierre-Noêl Levasseur, 1690-1770

They didn't really have a lot of art that was actually made in Quebec for the first couple hundred years. There were a few stiff portraits, similar to our colonial portraits. They had quite a bit of art from the late 1800s, but it was hung salon-style; although some were quite beautiful, they were hard to identify from the numbered guide, and impossible to photograph.

From the early 20th century, the exhibit was regular gallery style and some artists were shown in sufficient number that we could learn their style. By that time, artists from Quebec were aware of all the trends and had joined the international conversation on various themes and techniques.

Maurice Cullen, 1866-1934
Montreal Harbour, 1915

Adrien Hébert, 1890-1967
Saint-Denis Street, 1927

Jean Palardy, 1905-1991
Potato Picking, 1936

Three large galleries were devoted to an artist from Quebec named Alfred Pellan, an abstractionist who was constantly innovating in a very playful manner. He died in 1988, quite famous here. When his wife died recently she bequeathed the contents of his studio to the museum, thus inspiring this retrospective. They had a gallery for the studio, emphasizing his working process, then a large gallery of early works and another one of late works. Some of these paintings were quite captivating; many were too far out for me to follow.

Alfred Pellan, 1906-1988
Flowers and Dominoes, c. 1940

Alfred Pellan, 1906-1988
Secret Conversation, c. 1945

Alfred Pellan, 1906-1988
Bestiary 25

Comprehensive coverage was also given to Jean-Paul Riopelle. We first got interested in him because of his long-term relationship with Joan Mitchell, a foremost American abstractionist of the mid-twentieth century. 

Jean-Paul Riopelle, 1923-2002

One gallery showed a number of his works in the style we recognize, in which he used a trowel to spread the paint in orderly chunks. A few of these had all the magic of a Jackson Pollack drip painting.

Jean-Paul Riopelle, 1923-2002
Spain, 1951

Another gallery showed work in later, more reckless styles that I found hard to relate to. In particular he did a very long mural in which the images were silhouettes of objects made by spray painting the real objects lying on the canvas. The succession of items had to do with his memories of Joan Mitchell, but I couldn't figure it out.

Just to show how much space they have, I'll mention there was also an exhibit of glass art from Quebec and a large show by a ceramicist; neither of these shows appealed to us.

Lunch was a gourmet treat, real French food in the museum's restaurant. I had grilled salmon; Dan had roast duck. Quite memorable.

The Café

After the museum, Dan got the taxi driver to take us for a drive through Battlefield Park, a vast plain where a decisive battle took place between the French and the English in 1751. An area larger than the size of the city was reserved for a park—rolling hills of green lawn, large old trees, view points. 

Dan's plan for the warm and humid evening was to wash clothes at the laundromat across the street. I took one look in that hot little hole full of churning hot machines and said, "I'd rather wear dirty clothes." Dan persisted in washing a bunch of his own stuff, but I was in bed by 6:30. He came and went with his washing. Then he had dinner at the Indian restaurant across the street from the laundromat. I just kept sleeping.