ABSTRACT
The St-Hilaire Church Interior Decorations
(1896-1900) of Ozias Leduc
J. Craig Stirling
1982
Ozias Leduc was born at St-Hilaire on October 8, 1864 and
died at nearby St-Hyacinthe, Québec on June 16, 1955. During his long life, he decorated
more than twenty-eight Roman Catholic churches, convent chapels, and baptisteries in
Québec and the Maritime provinces, as well as many in the New England States.
This study is an historical, iconographical and formal
historical analysis of St-Hilaire church, Leduc’s own parish church and the first
commission in which he was solely responsible for designing the entire decorative scheme
(executed by him and his assistants between April 8, 1896 and early February, 1897;
fifteen canvases, fourteen Way of the Cross, and one medallion were completed by
May 24, 1900).
In order to bring the state of the church to the present
time, the restoration in 1928-1929 and the additions to the interior in 1930, 1931 also by
Ozias Leduc, are examined, as well as the subsequent repairs in 1953 by Leduc’s
assistant and student Mlle Gabrielle Messier.
The first two chapters contribute to the overall
understanding and the importance of this commission in Leducs’s career and evolution
of his artistic style. A brief historical and chronological account of St-Hilaire church
construction (1825-1837 and the subsequent years following when changes to the interior
were made) has been recreated to reveal the state of the church and Leduc’s
adaptation of his decorative scheme to the already existing Neo-Gothic architectural
interior at the time of the 1896 project. Another chapter is devoted to Leduc's early
career, to investigate his rural cultural background, education and apprenticeship in late
l9th century Québec.
The genesis of his philosophy of art and personal artistic
style emerge from the St-Hilaire church project, as well as his clearly defined roles as
entrepreneur, decorator, and muralist.
By examining primary source documentation such as his
personal papers and preliminary drawings for this commission, a complex Christian
symbolism becomes evident, making him a uniquely important muralist among his
contemporaries in Québec, Canada and Europe.
Overall, this is a first general assessment of major
architectural monuments raised in Quebec City and Montreal by the administration of the
period, and of the importance and intrinsic meaning of the Palladian villa as model and
type.
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