I'm linking up at Monday Mural
Manifeste à Paul-Émile Borduas mural located at Place Paul-Émile-Borduas. Created by graphic designer Thomas Csano and calligrapher Luc Saucier, produced by the public art organization MU.
Honours Quebec artist Paul-Émile Borduas and features excerpts from the famous 1948 manifesto, Refus global.
Published on August 9, 1948, Refus global (Total Refusal) was a fierce, anti-establishment manifesto primarily written by painter Paul-Émile Borduas. It was countersigned by 15 other young, avant-garde Québécois artists and intellectuals collectively known as the Automatistes.
The manifesto vehemently attacked the suffocating conservatism, political corruption, and isolation of Quebec society at the time. Its main target was the heavy, institutional control of the Roman Catholic Church.
The group demanded an immediate open-mindedness to universal ideas, total artistic freedom, and a reliance on the subconscious mind rather than academic constraints.
At the time, it caused an immediate, massive public scandal. Borduas was swiftly fired from his teaching job at the École du meuble de Montréal, and several signatories were socially ostracised or forced into exile. However, it is now widely considered the spark that laid the groundwork for the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, shifting Quebec into modern secularism.
Look closely at the top of the mural where red shapes break away from a dark cloud. These are 16 red birds, acting as a direct metaphor for the 16 signatories of Refus global breaking free from the societal conformity of their era.
The background text features actual excerpts from the manifesto, beautifully hand-painted by calligrapher Luc Saucier. Crucially, some of the words are intentionally left incomplete or are obscured by black ink blots. This forces passersby to use their own imagination to fill in the blanks, mirroring the Automatiste belief in spontaneous, uninhibited creation.
The Red Text: The word MANIFESTE on the left side uses the exact custom typography from the cover of the original 1948 publication.
Piano Keys and Barcodes: The harsh vertical black and white lines at the baseline serve a double purpose. They represent piano keys—a nod to the multidisciplinary nature of the group, which included dancers and musicians—while simultaneously mimicking modern commercial barcodes as a critique of consumer society.
Hommage à Éva Circé-Côté created in 2022 by artist Cyrielle Tremblay.
A tribute to Éva Circé-Côté (1871–1949), a notable Quebec intellectual, free thinker, feminist, and Montreal's first public librarian.
The artwork features a large stack of books topped with a vase of flowers, overlaid with pages of text quoting her work and signature styling by the artist.
Éva Circé-Côté left a lasting legacy as a pioneer of progressive reform and secularism in early 20th-century Quebec through these quick impacts:
• Champion of Public Education: She served as the first librarian of Montreal’s first public library (the civic library opened in 1903), actively fighting censorship and promoting free access to books for all social classes.
• Feminist Pioneer: Under various male and female pseudonyms (most notably Julien Saint-Jean), she published over 1,800 progressive columns advocating for women's suffrage, mandatory schooling, and the secularization of education.
• Cultural Advocate: She founded the Lycée de jeunes filles (Lyceum for Young Girls) in 1910 to offer girls a secular, high-quality alternative to religious schooling, and she co-founded the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal to support local arts education.
"All the Mountains Know Me" by Peru Dyer.
The Society for the Reform of the Golden Rule created by artist Carlito Dalceggio in 2008.
The artist Carlito Dalceggio was asked to create mural based on the theme At the heart of cultural creation. Using his distinctive vivid and whimsical iconography, the artist chose to express the given theme by creating his own interpretation of Boticelli’s Venus, the quintessential muse and source of inspiration for all creators. The muse also symbolizes culture: the writing on her body evokes the Latin Quarter’s literary heritage. Atalas, the tribal hermaphrodite, holds up the Earth represented by a seashell. The tribe of ancestors conveys artistic revival, a creative evolution, which pushes tradition forward.
"Growing Rhythm" created in 2021 by Canadian visual artist and muralist Caitlin McDonagh.
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