Paul-Émile Borduas 1905 - 1960

Galerie Dresdnere, Toronto
Private Collection, Ontario

François-Marc Gagnon, Paul-Émile Borduas, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1976, p.22.

After a number of difficult years tormented by financial troubles and separation from his family, in April 1953, Paul-Émile Borduas departed Quebec for America. He spent the spring and summer months in Provincetown, Massachusetts, before settling in New York City in September. It was a time of regeneration and excitement for the artist, and proved deeply motivating and effective for his creative output. As François-Marc Gagnon wrote, “with the change of environment and the enjoyment of a new spiritual freedom, Borduas’ work regained its momentum;” critics and art historians often point to 1953 as a seminal year in the artist’s oeuvre.

Les Défenses du Jardin bears the dynamic liveliness of Borduas’ canvases painted at Provincetown that summer, with an intimacy of scale that belies is outsized impact. Following the artist’s Automatiste credo, it is completely abstract in its execution, though perhaps not in its inspiration. The sunlight and long days of summer, and the lush east-coast setting around him may well have influenced the subtly verdant palette.

The canvas is tightly arranged and rhythmically painted, with thick bands of white impasto punctuated by staccato points of colour. If the imaginative viewes close their eyes, they might be able to hear the pulsating heartbeat, stimulated by a new setting, new risks, a new life, which in turn inspired this heartfelt, instinctive composition.