La Sculpture ancienne au Québec: Trois siècles d’art religieux et profane by John R. Porter and Jean Bélisle (review)

240 LETTERS IN CANADA 1988 work. But who were these reviewers? Gagnon seldom tells us anything about the background of the writers or the political or social stripe of the newspapers in which they were publishing. F.-M. Gagnon is himself the son ofMaurice Gagnon, who was one of Borduas's colleagues at the Ecole du Meuble and one of the artist's earliest champions; Montreal writers and newspapers are household words to him. Not so for readers outside Quebec, or even for a younger generation of Montrealers. I had to search through the index ofthe Ecrits and of Gagnon's 1978 biographyin order to ascertain which of the reviewers were Borduas's students, which his colleagues, and which members of the Catholic establishment. The political positions of the newspapers (again something the reader has to find from other sources) often correlated interestingly with the positions of their art reviewers toward Borduas. A short Who's Who, or footnotes in the catalogue, could have made the reviews quoted much more comprehensible . Another problem which emerged for me was Gagnon's commentary on the reviewers' discussions of the meaning of Borduas's work. Rather than accepting that the reviewers were revealing their ideological positions, Gagnon tends to commend or reprimand them for what they say. In the event, Gagnon's desire to let Borduas's career emerge cumulatively , through a process of documentation with the minimum of interpretation, raises a host of questions - questions of which the text often seems unaware. While the catalogue will be a useful reference book, it should also unleash debate on the implications of Borduas's position as a modernist artist, and of his reputation on the Canadian and the international scenes. (GERTA MORAY) John R. Porter and Jean Belisle. La Sculpture ancienne au Quebec: Trois siecles d'art religieux et profane Editions de l'Homme 1986. 503 plus indices. $34.95 Porter's and Belisle's La Sculpture ancienne au Quebec constitutes not only an excellent synthesis of the early history of Quebec sculpture but also a major contribution to Canadian art history, both in terms of subject matter and methodology. Recognizing the special character of the development of sculpture in Canada, the authors do not bind themselves by the habitual format of art history synthesis, namely proceeding by style evolution and artists' careers. Instead, they chose to present sculpture within the context of early Quebec society and everyday life. This approach allows them to capture the unique nature and development of Quebec sculpture with remarkable complexity and clarity. The authors first define the socio-cultural setting in which Quebec sculpture developed and the way the natural and social environment HUMANITIES 241 determined the materials and types of sculpted works. This groundwork laid, they proceed to discuss the emergence of sculpture as a profession, its organization, changing work conditions, and eventually the stratification of sculpture-makinginto artisanat, consumer sculpture and sculpture as high art." Chapter 5 complements this analysis with a brilliant discussion of the patrons of early Quebec sculpture: the Roman Catholic church, lay parish groups, colonial government, town councils, professional associations, business, and the shipping industry. The first half of the book clearly illustrates the broad base from which Quebec sculpture was born, and deepens our perspective of the vast variety of early Quebec's sculptural expression. The second half of the book addresses the more conventional art history issues, namely the execution of sculptural works, iconography, and stylistic development. As chapter 6 shows, early Quebec sculptures were seldom displayed as pure products of three-dimensional art per se, but were parts of ensembles that combined several art forms, such as architecture, painting, and gilding. The most characteristic feature of early Quebec sculpture (religious or secular) was revetement (polychromy ), a technique which suffered a decline only with the advent of academic sculpture in the nineteenth century. Porter and Belisle contend that while the socio-cultural setting of early Quebec sculpture was unique and resulted in an interesting mixture of popular and high art forms, in the area of iconography and style Quebec remained firmly a part of the European (and later American) world, displaying little originality or deviation from the mainstream and showing...