QUEBEC’S SHAPING OF CANADA
New painting in the style of the Old Masters
On Saturday evening, some lucky New Yorkers attended a sneak preview of the latest work by figurative painter Adam Miller — a new masterpiece in the style of the Old Masters that is sure to become a lightning rod for debate in Quebec’s political, academic and artistic communities when it comes to Montreal this fall.
The piece, titled simply Quebec, was privately commissioned by Salvatore Guerrera, a Montreal patron of the arts who wanted to mark Canada’s 150th and Montreal’s 375th birthdays by commissioning a monumental work of art that would celebrate the role of Quebec in shaping Canada.
The nine-foot-by-10-foot oilon-canvas work can be described as a modern retake on The Death of Wolfe, the 1770 painting by Anglo-American artist Benjamin West that depicts the death of the British General James Wolfe in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
But instead of depicting one moment in history, Miller’s canvas includes more than 100 political and historic figures that reference some of the most dramatic events of almost 500 years of history, from the era of Chief Donnaconna and Jacques Cartier to the present day.
“Adam found fantastic references from that painting and others from the same period,” said Canadian art historian Clarence Epstein. “Where Benjamin West was working from one point of view in one place at one point in time, Adam, as this new Old Master painter, was not only looking at contemporary issues, but he was taking his cues from some of the great Old Master historical painters that were using the manipulation of space, and the ordering of figures and the representation of light and dark in ways that are now being revived.”
The painting references key events such the Battle of the Long Sault, the deaths of generals Wolfe and Montcalm, the Red River Rebellion, the October Crisis and the Oka Crisis. Viewers will recognize several prime ministers (Wilfred Laurier, John A. Macdonald , Stephen Harper, Brian Mulroney, Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Jean Chrétien, Kim Campbell) a few Quebec premiers (Jean Lesage, Daniel Johnson Sr., Daniel Johnson Jr., Jean Charest, Bernard Landry, René Lévesque, Robert Bourassa, Jacques Parizeau, Philippe Couillard), native leaders and activists such as Joe Norton and Ellen Gabriel, and figures from the October crisis, including Paul Rose, James Cross and Pierre Laporte.
Guerrera became familiar with Miller’s work through his readings about the “new Old Masters,” a school of painters who are reclaiming the artistic traditions of the likes of Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Pontormo and Rubens. Guerrara and Miller began to plan the project more than three years ago.
Long before putting his brush to canvas, Miller took a kind of crash course in Quebec history. He says he met with some of Canada’s most prominent historians, politicians and native leaders, but he agreed not to name his consultants until the painting is shown in Canada in the fall.
“What really changed things for me was when I started to hear some of the politicians’ personal stories and the drama became so alive,” Miller said in a telephone interview from New York on Saturday.
He stressed he was not trying to create an exhaustive list of events or people that have shaped history, but rather depict some of the highlights of an epic story.
“If you are going to engage people, drama is central. I really looked for points that actions pivoted on that I think changed the experience of Quebec. People who were connected to those events were more likely to end up in the painting … I tried to approach this without too much political theory getting in the way of the stories.”
Some of the figures represent the modern “Everyman,” he said, such as the woman in the white scarf who seems to be pointing to a man being arrested. Miller said the arrest is a reference to Pierre Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act during the October Crisis in 1970. The woman is expressing indignation toward an event Miller thinks “scarred the culture.”
A female figure in the bottom corner carrying a flag is a nod to historians who told him they see Quebec as a kind of orphan, Miller said. She is “a personification of this young country trying to stand and find its way, not quite sure who its parents are.” She is also a reference to the 1830 painting by Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, he said.
Miller also put in a figure he calls “Confusion”— the bearded man at the front of the painting wearing a striped scarf — which he acknowledged is a self-portrait. Confusion is an outsider “who walks into this gigantic story, this epic story that is told over centuries about a lot of different cultures and people, and is just confounded and confused by the whole thing. I felt that was an honest way to approach this story. I can have theories about it and I have listened to other people’s stories and put them together but in the end, I think Confusion’s interpretation is central to the story.”
The painting doesn’t endorse any political point of view, Epstein said.
“No matter your political orientation, cultural or linguistic background, you cannot deny the importance of the role of Quebec in shaping Canada,” Epstein said. “That is the underlying gesture of this commission. In this anniversary year, (the idea is) to show the integrality of all these movements, all these stories, all these people, all these conflicts and resolutions as being part of whole.”
The piece was unveiled Saturday as the cornerstone of a show called “Solace and the Universal Struggle to Retain Memory” at the Paul Booth Gallery on West 38th St. in New York City. Miller participated in a panel discussion with Epstein, sculptor Sabin Howard, journalist and author Jonathan Kay, and art critic Donald Kuspit.
The McCord Museum is expected to display the painting in the fall at a date to be announced. McGill University Press will also be publishing a collection of writings about the painting, titled “Quebec; A painting by Adam Miller,” which will include essays on the painting by art historians François-Marc Gagnon and Alexandre Turgeon, along with an interview with Miller.