It is said that reality surpasses fiction. But is it always true? In the series of tales and facts, The duty explores the real and fictional dimensions of Quebec’s legendary stories and tales. Today, the mysterious painting of the Notre-Dame-de-Liesse church, in Rivière-Ouelle.
In the middle of a snowy landscape, a man on his knees beside two of his deceased companions, lying on the ground, seems to be thanking the Virgin Mary for some benefit.
What atrocity did he survive? This is what the table seems to ask Ex-Voto Notre-Dame-de-Liesse, which for centuries has adorned the walls of the church in the village of Rivière-Ouelle, in Bas-Saint-Laurent. For what miracle did the Virgin who commissioned it from an unknown painter from New France, around 1730, wish to thank the Virgin?
This is the question that Father Henry-Raymond Casgrain dared to answer when he published in the Canada Mailin 1860, The painting of Rivière-Ouellethe first of a series of stories that will form the famous collection Canadian legends the next year.
This legend, he says he heard it from the mouth of his mother, a literate and daring woman, also a pianist in her spare time. Jumping into the interpretation with both feet, Father Casgrain tells in his text the story of the young kneeling officer. Found thus by a missionary accompanied by a troop of Aboriginals, he says he had left the country of the Abenakis a month earlier with his father, a soldier and an Aboriginal guide. It was following an encounter with an Iroquois warrior that the guide was killed and then scalped, leaving the troops to fend for themselves, and the officer’s father and the soldier who accompanied him to die of cold. .
And it was to thank the Virgin for having saved him that the officer commissioned the painting, as he had promised his dying father.
“Although the event depicted is unknown to us, the canvas provides enough clues to imagine the terrible situation that led this survivor to order a large ex-voto for the church of Rivière-Ouelle”, writes for his part the art historian Laurier Lacroix, in the catalog that accompanied an exhibition of the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec (MNBAQ) on the art of New France, in 2012, where the painting was presented.
An early winter landscape of New France
In reality, we do not know under what circumstances theEx-voto Notre-Dame-de-Liesse was commissioned, as well as who painted it.
One thing is certain, it is the first painted winter landscape known to New France, explains Daniel Drouin, curator of ancient arts at the MNBAQ. “The ex-votos were promises of reproduction for a favor obtained. It was often linked to tragedies, deaths, deaths in different circumstances, ”he continues.
Also, the costume worn by the man kneeling in the painting testifies to a specific period in the history of New France: when the settlers began to make their clothes on site. At this pivotal moment, “people are permanently settled in the colony. […] More and more trades are being trained, and fabrics are becoming available. The colony is beginning to be self-sufficient,” says Mr. Drouin.
Painters then living in New France were very rare, however, and the parishes most often adorned the walls of their churches with paintings imported from the mother country. “At the time, painting was usually not done in the colony,” he adds. There are no workshops, no artists permanently installed. »
In New France, “nothing was encouraged to give birth to Canadian painting. The ex-voto is one of the extremely rare examples of works produced in the colony, in difficult conditions, especially to find material,” he continues.
The anonymous artist of the painting is probably self-taught “He does not have a training as solid as that provided in European academies even if he has obvious knowledge. It could well be a European – a Frenchman or a Belgian – who immigrated to New France and who was able to work in various fields, ”he notes.
Daniel Drouin does not exclude that the painting is the work of Jean Jacquiés, known as Leblond, a Belgian who arrived in the colony in 1712, where he practiced sculpture, more widespread here at the time than painting.
The painting probably adorned the first church of the municipality of Rivière-Ouelle, which this year celebrated its 350e anniversary. The first church was built there in 1682, followed by a second blessed in 1794 and then shaken by earthquakes. The present church dates from 1870.
The painting has been known to art historians since the end of the 20th century.e century, says M. Drouin. At the turn of the 2000s, it was restored at great expense by the Center de conservation du Québec.
The inspiration of Father Casgrain
The story of the painting, in any case, inspired Abbé Casgrain, who found in the legends of Quebec material to stimulate his literary inclinations. Father Casgrain would later become a fervent animator of Quebec literary life and of the circle of scholars who met at Octave Crémazie’s bookstore in Quebec.
From 1861, “everyone will start publishing legends”, observes Claude La Charité, professor of letters and humanities at the University of Quebec in Rimouski and specialist in Quebec literary history of the 19th century.e century.
In his foreword to Canadian legends, Abbé Casgrain defines the legend as “the poetry of History” and compares it to the recomposed reflection of the snow-capped Laurentians in the water of the St. Lawrence River. Abbé Casgrain is a follower of the romantic literary movement, from the 17e and XVIIIe centuries, where “we imitate nature by idealizing it”.
Himself a native of Rivière-Ouelle, Father Casgrain will have found inspiration in contemplating the river.