The duty goes beyond the framework of the National Assembly in this series which revisits the highlights of our political history. Today, Champlain’s arrival in Quebec by Henry Beau.
September 1903. The painter Henri Beau arrives in Canada with a large painting under his arm. The painting, made in Paris, illustrates the founding of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain in 1608. It is intended for the Red Room of the Quebec Parliament Building, where it will arouse enthusiasm before being relegated to oblivion.
The painting was commissioned by Lomer Gouin, Minister of Public Works in the Liberal government of Simon-Napoléon Parent. It was not quite finished when it was unpacked in front of the representatives of the parliamentary press at the end of the summer of 1903. The artist from Montreal still had to add to it the “colour of the Canadian sky” allowing ” nationalize the work,” as a journalist from The homeland.
It is sure that there are problems if we look [le tableau] like a history painting. However, the work should be read as a compendium of the first decades of French colonization of Canada.
Despite its size, the canvas, three meters high and six meters wide, does not occupy the entire frame intended for it. Henri Beau foresaw this by adding side panels on which are painted the faces of explorer Jacques Cartier and General Montcalm. The two heroes then incarnate the alpha and omega of New France, which constitutes the main theme of the statuary and the woodwork of the Parliament.
Summer ice cream
Champlain’s arrival in Quebec was completed on the floor of the Salon Rouge, between two sessions of the Legislative Council, the Quebec equivalent of the Federal Senate, which was to be abolished in 1968. To kill boredom, the journalists responsible for covering this Upper House have fun point out the “errors” of Beau’s canvas facing them. Starting with the incongruous presence of ice (1) on the St. Lawrence in a scene supposed to take place on July 3, 1608! This late debacle would be foam “misrepresented”, says Damase Potvin, who will spend nearly fifteen years observing it from the top of the press gallery.
The second error is more subtle. It concerns the ship armed with cannons (2), the size of which does not seem to correspond to the boat used by Champlain to go up the river in 1608. Like his contemporaries, the founder of Quebec preferred to leave his ships at draft at Tadoussac so as not to expose them unnecessarily to the pitfalls of the narrow channel linking Île aux Coudres to Cap Tourmente.
The presence of women and children (3) on the deck of the ship also raised eyebrows among learned visitors to the Salon Rouge. In 1608, it was not the time for the colonization of Canada, and Champlain’s crew was instead made up of carpenters, sawyers and gardeners. In addition to Étienne Brûlé, there is the locksmith Jean Duval, whose head will end up on the end of a pike for having tried to assassinate his boss! The black interpreter Mathieu Da Costa, whom some historians wanted to see alongside Champlain, is not on the trip.
The last notable anachronism of the canvas stems from the presence of a priest (4) near the foremast. In fact, it was not until 1615 that the first Récollets landed at the foot of Cap Diamant. Champlain’s initial indifference to the spirituality of the Aboriginal peoples then turns into a desire to convert them to Catholicism.
Henri Beau took little interest in the First Peoples of the continent, whom he reduced to two paddlers sailing afar in a bark canoe (5). “The composition leaves only a very limited place for Aboriginal people,” noted art historian Anne-Élisabeth Vallée in an interview with The duty. Moreover, in a later version of the same composition, Beau had simply removed them! »
Oblivion
Encouraged by his contract for the Salon Rouge, Henri Beau again offered his services in 1909 to create the canvas planned for the Salon Vert of the Legislative Assembly. Liberal MP Godfroy Langlois then served as his go-between. “His idea would be to fix on a large painting a scene of the first chamber of assembly, which sat in Quebec in 1792”, he wrote to the Minister of Public Works at the time, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau. The contract is however awarded to his rival Charles Huot, of Quebec.
The star of the Montreal painter has faded on Parliament Hill, where people openly make fun of the summer mirrors in his painting of the Red Room. “Of course there are problems if we look at it as a historical painting,” recognizes art historian Laurier Lacroix. However, the work must be read as a summary of the first decades of French colonization of Canada. “Beau knew enough of the historical accounts to know, for example, that Champlain had not gone up to Quebec with his boat. »
This misunderstanding led to the commissioning of a replacement work in 1926. To add insult to injury, Quebec entrusted its production to none other than Charles Huot, who enjoyed the status of “national painter”, as Laurier Lacroix pointed out. “He lived in Quebec, unlike Beau who, from Paris, had limited access to decision-makers. The latter is also one of the least committed painters of his generation. “His history paintings did not seek as much as those of his contemporaries to exalt the patriotic feeling,” explains Lacroix. He made a work of art before making a didactic or national work. »
In 1930, the Champlain du Salon rouge gave way to the Sovereign Council of Huot. “Henri Beau’s painting was not…beautiful enough,” quipped journalist Damase Potvin. The fallen canvas made its way to the current Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec three years later. It was probably at this time that the Cartier and Montcalm panels that framed Beau’s canvas were lost. The research carried out in the reserves of the National Assembly and the museum at the request of the To have to couldn’t find them.
For Laurier Lacroix, Henri Beau’s Champlain should never have been removed from its original location. “It was more interesting, clearer, less cluttered and more readable than Huot’s painting. »
His colleague Robert Derome shares this opinion, while recalling that it is now too late to correct this century-old error. “I would be very surprised if the Museum were ready to make the exchange with the National Assembly,” he told the To have to with a smile.