Textes mis en ligne le 24 mars 2003, par Kawthar GRAR, dans le cadre du cours HAR1830 Les arts en Nouvelle-France, au Québec et dans les Canadas avant 1867. Aucune vérification linguistique n'a été faite pour contrôler l'exactitude des transcriptions effectuées par l'équipe d'étudiants.
Historiographie - Gowans, Alan 1957.09a
Bibliographie de Jacques Robert, n° :222Art Bulletin, vol. 39, n° 3, septembre 1957, p. 242-243.
ALAN GOWANS, Church Architecture in New France, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1955. Pp. 162; 51 pls. $8.00.
In the preface of the fine work which he has just published - Church Architecture in New France - Mr. Alan Gowans pays tribute to those who aided him in his research on this unusually difficult subject. For my part, I accept with pleasure the sentiments of gratitude which he expresses toward me with such graciousness and urbanity.
I have said that it is a difficult subject - even perilous, I might add. I undertook to treat it more than a quarter of a century ago, but had to abandon the project for reasons which are no doubt insufficient: exacting research and lack of spare time. When, in 1947, I saw that a young scholar - intelligent, systematic, and imbued with enthusiasm for the work - was attacking the same subject with the intention of bringing it to a successful conclusion, I was glad to assist him and to place at his disposal the confused but enourmous mass of documents contained in the Inventaire des œuvres d'art of the province of Quebec.
In these art archives there are undoubtedly manuscript copies and thousands of photographs. There are also the elements of a bibliography which, together with those published in 1930 and 1939 by Mr. Antoine Roy, Archivist of the Province, has been of great use to Mr. Gowans from the beginning of his research.
Thus the author of Church Architecture in New France was able to acquire, in a rather joyous manner, his profound knowledge of the techniques and forms of bygone days. And, like a fine architect, he has ordered his material with a rigorous logic and an innate sens of form.
I would gladly congratulate Mr. Gowans on this accomplishment, were he not already above my praise by reason of his knowledge ans mastery. He should know, however, that French Canada owes him a debt of infinite gratitude for having acquainted us, with so much love and erudition, with an architecture which we were in the process of forgetting, for the excellent reason that is has almost entirely disappeared. Disasters, normal development of the country, and also a certain taste for fashion have weighed heavily against the religious architecture of the French Regime. Nevertheless, Mr. Gowans, in a very well organized chronological table, retraces the avatars of our early religious monuments with a richness of detail that does him honor.
The main divisions of Mr. Gowans' work are as follows: 1) The Heroic Age (1608-1665). 2) The Age of Laval (1665-1700). 3) New France Becomes Canadien (1700-1760). Chronological divisions are generally imperfect. But here they seem to me to be well adapted to our civil and social history, at any rate to the activity of certain men such as the Intendant Jean Talon, Mgr. de Laval, and the architect Jean Maillou. Behind these men one feels the constant influence of a powerful religious order of the time, the Récollets. Whence two types of church: à la récollette and à transept . The former prevailed over the latter during the French Regime, but after 1760, under the influence of Mgr. Briand, the transept church supplanted the récollette church. Finally there was constitudes, in detail as well as in ensemble, an essentially Canadian religious style, of which the finest examples today are the churches of Saint Mathias, Lacadie, Saint Jean Port Joli and Lotbinière.
In his work Mr. Gowans dwells at great lengh on a difficult problem, that of the origin of certain architectural forms in the churches of the French Regime. With respect to their planning, I have already indicated the influence of the Récollets, for it can hardly be denied. But with regard to certain architectural motifs, such as the clocher , where is one to find the prototype? Certainly not in Normandy nor in Brittany, fot in the seventeenth century these two provinces, built few churches; nor in Poitou, though this province has provided us with models of retables, and even with sculptors, such as the Baillairgés; nor in Ile-de-France, although one must here except certain monuments of Paris. A recent trip to France permitted me to zigzag through Burgundy, and there I discovered the origin of our clochers with one or two lanterns. Let me make myself clear: I saw no clocher which had the identical curved gable of the memorial chapel of St. Anne de Beaupré (1696) or of the Séminaire de Québec (1679). But I noted obvious relationships in the silhouette, in the general design and even in the detail of the timberwork. These Burgundian clochers do not always cap church towers, but are also to be found on the corner turrets of chateaux, on monastery kitchens, and even on city gates. Thus, at Auxerre, Avallon, Saulieu, Vézelay, and Autun, I admired the lanterns of clochers and towers which reminded me of the finest works left to us by our architects.
I should like to leave it to the readers of Church Architecture in New France to discover for themselves the beauties of Mr. Gowans' work. And yet, in spite of myself, I cannot pass over in silence the reliability of his sources, the simplicity of his account, the ingenuity of his interpretations, and above all the nicety of his impressions and of his taste. I spoke just now of joy. One feels it throughout Mr. Gowans' work. He has loved his subject, has thrown himself into it like a swimmer into deep water, ans has mastered it with a perception and a virtuosity which leave me thoughtful. Erudition is disppearing, claim the gloomy souls. Ah no! It is simply growing rare. And when, in Church Architecture in New France , one encounters it flowing fully and freely, one greets it with a deep bow and unstinting encouragement.
