The National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec is currently housed in two Pavilions, or buildings, with a third very much under construction. There are lots of construction workers and they all park in the public parking lot of the Museum, leaving no room for visitors. Fortunately, there is street parking, and since we arrived shortly before the Museum opened, we found a parking place just at the front doors and we were the first visitors of the day.
Front entrance to the Museum located in a sort of connecting building between the current two pavilions.
I really liked the way the Museum is organized. In the traditional museum building, the original 1933 Gerard-Morisset building, with the grand entrance with pillars (currently under renovation), there were two floors with current exhibitions. A third floor is currently closed for the installation of three new exhibits. The main level floor had two exhibition room, one showing Figurative and Abstract Art in Quebec: 1940 - 1960, and another featuring the work of Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002). This is where we went first.
Riopell is one of Quebec's most famous artists, including the impressive fresco L'Hommage a Rosa Luxemburg.
Another impressive canvas dating from the 1960's.
The other exhibition on the first floor was Figurative and Abstract Art in Quebec: 1940 - 1960. This work is by Alfred Pellan, Secret Conversation.
Other works are by Borduas, Dallaire, Leduc, Roussil, and many other artists who marked this period of artistic creation in Quebec.
There was sculpture, enamel work and furniture.
On the stairway up to the 2ed floor, for the next three exhibitions, was this display of glasswork. The center piece was particularly stunning.
Five Muses by Alfred Laliberte, on the 2ed floor landing. A bronze casting is in Montreal
The three exhibitions on the 2ed floor were highlighted, for me, by the 22 Inuit Art pieces on display from the Museum's Brousseau Inuit Art Collection. Collector Raymond Brousseau collected 2,635 pieces from every region of Nunavut.
"The works in this exhibit reflect the deep interrelation of humans and wildlife in the Arctic over thousands of years. Inuit artists are well known for their ability to capture the spirit of an animal in stone, ivory and bone; this understanding of Arctic wildlife is rooted in their intimate knowledge of the land and the respectful relationship they have with animals of the northern sea, sky and tundra. For millennia, Inuit survival depended on their ability to responsibly harvest whales, seals, caribou and other Arctic wildlife, which provided not only food but also oil for lamps and skins for warm and waterproof clothing. While the Arctic has modernized over the last century Inuit still rely on the traditional knowledge passed down through generations to closely observe animal migrations, ocean life and even weather patterns. This intimate knowledge of their ecosystem enables them to provide for their families by continuing to harvest healthy "country food" (sustainable local Arctic food sources such as caribou, seal, blueberries, fish and fowl). Furthermore, many Inuit now also apply the considerable powers of observation and practiced patience honed through hunting to the creation of artwork depicting the wildlife with which they share their vast polar territory.
This exhibition features more than twenty works from the Brousseau Inuit Art Collection, created by artists from communities across Nunavut and Nunavik (Arctic Quebec) between 1970 and 2006. The artworks in this selection demonstrate the artists' keen observation skills and ingenuity with abstraction, while highlighting the centrality of Arctic wildlife to Inuit culture, traditional knowledge, livelihood and well-being."
This piece, the other side is below, was carved from whale bone, a very difficult medium to use.
Incredible details that reflect their life.
This piece shows a mother and child (in the mother's hood) protected by a shaman.
A woman soon to give birth.
A fanciful interpretation of a shaman hunting/riding a caribou (which the description said would never happen). There is a fair amount of symbolism in the artwork.
A work carved from a walrus skull.
Detail.
A sculpture that captures the weightlessness of a polar bear in water.
A whimsical interpretation of a walrus.
A Narwal whale.
Another fanciful animal interpretation.
The other two exhibits focused on historic perspectives of the development of art in Quebec. The first was called Tradition and Modernity in Quebec. The works in the exhibition echo the birth of modern art and the desire to preserve traditional values and illustrates two artistic realities that clashed between 1860 and 1945.
Jacques Cartier Meeting the Indians at Stadacona, 1535, by Marc-Aurele de Foy Suzor-Cote, painted in 1907.
A more modern interpretation of traditional culture and values.
Landscape.
The importance of nature with a focus on one tree.
A Montreal city street scene from the 1940s.
The other exhibition highlights the key role Quebec City played, artistically speaking, during three significant periods: the French colony (1608-1763); the British holding (1763-1867); and, the Old Capital of early Confederation (1867-1900).
During the French colonial period, religious art dominated.
We then moved to the other building which, it turns out, used to serve as the provincial prison. Standing on the Plains of Abraham, the building was in operation for more than one hundred years (1863-1970). After the jail's closing, the building was transformed into a youth hostel for one season, in the summer of 1971, and was then completely abandoned. The Museum's decision to incorporate it into their complex of buildings in 1987 put an end to its period of disuse.
Today cell block six, where in the beginning those awaiting the death sentence were housed, has been preserved.
This is cell block eleven, originally used for vagrants, it has also been preserved as part of the Museum.
There are four galleries in this pavilion, each devoted to four different artists, considered the major figures of modern art: Jean Paul Lemieux, Alfred Pellan, Fernand Leduc and Jean-Paul Riopelle.
Jean-Paul Riopelle was a multi-faceted artist - sculpture and paintings.
Riopelle.
Frederick read that Riopelle exhibited with Jackson Pollock.
Fernand Leduc was part of the great movements of abstract art in 20th -century Quebec.
He was all about color and geometric rigor.
Alfred Pellan explored a great many art forms imbued with Surrealism.
These works are very textural.
I loved his whimsical figures.
The fourth artist in Jean Paul Lemieux who explored a world of space and silence. This is a self-portrait with youth and adolescence reflected in the picture.
His vision of anguish in the contemporary age.
His remembrance of his childhood summers.
A snowy city with the suburbs in the foreground.
The Express Train.
Lemieux.
Lemieux.
Lemieux.
We ate our lunch on the Plains of Abraham, know as the location of the Wolfe - Montcalm battle for the control of Canada.
There was one track for runners and one for roller-bladers.
We then headed for the Levis Forts National Historic Site, about 15 miles from our campground. It is one of three British detached forts built 1865-72 on the heights of Pointe-Levy, Fort No. 1, was meant to protect the city of Quebec from an invasion by the United States following the American Civil War. Fortunately, the Treaty of Washington, between the U.S. and Englnad, signed in 1871, settled the disagreements between the two countries. Consequently none of the forts ever housed a garrison.
Unfortunately for us, the fort is only open for visitors during the summer. The gate was locked.
We did take a walk around the fort and saw the walls and fortifications.
Outside the fort.
Beautiful tree across the street from the fort.
On the way back to the campground we stopped at the Parc des Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere, about two miles from our campground.
You can view the 116 ft. Chaudiere Falls from a suspension bridge hanging 76 feet above the river.
Selfie at the falls.
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