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Canadian art had its quiet beginnings in Quebec City three hundred years ago, and the full panoply of subsequent Quebecois art can be found in the 20,000-strong collection of the Musee du Quebec , whose bright, glassy entrance is at the foot of rue Wolfe-Montcalm, on the western edge of Parc de Champs-de-Batailles (June to early Sept Mon-Tues & Thurs-Sun 10am-6pm, Wed 10am-9pm; early Sept to May Tues & Thurs-Sun 11am-5pm, Wed 11am-9pm; $7, free on Wed Sept-May only; www.mdq.org ). If you don't fancy walking, bus #11 connects Vieux-Quebec to avenue Wolfe-Montcalm along Grande-Allee. As you face the entrance hall, the museum's original Neo classical building, now known as the Gerard-Morisset Pavilion, is to the right; and the recently renovated Victorian prison, renamed the Charles-Baillairge Pavilion, is to the left. It's a bit of a shame that the Musee du Quebec's impressive permanent collection is no longer on display to the degree that it once was, but the space freed up does allow for touring exhibitions in addition to artist or movement-specific shows using parts of the collection as the nucleus. A good survey of Quebecois art up to 1945 can be found in the two galleries on the top level of the Gerard-Morisset Pavilion , though. The first of these hosts "Quebec, l'art d'une capitale nationale", which covers the period from the beginnings of Quebecois art in the early seventeenth century until the end of the nineteenth century. Religious art dominates the earliest works, which coincide with Quebec City's role as the capital of New France until the British conquest. The influential output of painter Frere Luc , a former assistant to Poussin, can be seen in The Guardian Angel (1671), depicting the story of Tobias and the archangel Raphael. Sculptures in this period were also heavily influenced by Catholic themes as Quebec churches were the primary art commissioners at the time. The most notable contributions to the collection are by two dynasties: the works of brothers Pierre-Noel and Francois-Noel Levasseur from the mid-1700s displayed here capped a century of family achievements. Three generations of Baillairges succeeded them, their copious output including the architecture of churches as well as their interior decoration, evidenced by Francois Baillairge 's pulpit for the old church in Baie-St-Paul. Under the British, Quebec City's next incarnation as a capital saw a broadening in subject matter with a penchant for portraiture among the middle and upper classes. The bourgeoisie's favourite portrait painter was Antoine Plamondon , who trained in Paris under Charles X's court painter Guerin, himself a pupil of the classicist David - a lineage evident in Plamondon's poised Madame Tourangeau (1842). Theophile Hamel , a pupil of Plamondon, combined what he learned from his tour around Europe in the 1840s - the palette of Rubens and the draughtsmanship of the Flemish masters - in his Self-portrait in the Studio , painted soon after his return. The first artist to depict Canadian landscapes was the Quebec-born Joseph Legare , whose sympathy with radical French-Canadians led to his imprisonment after the 1837 Rebellion. His View of the Fire in the Saint-Jean District of Quebec City, Looking West - depicting the 1845 conflagration that made 10,000 homeless - is the most powerful of his many paintings recording local scenes and events. His contemporary, Amsterdam-born Cornelius Krieghoff , became one of the best-known artists of the period for his romanticized landscapes of Quebec-area landmarks. Unfortunately, only one is on display - Indian Encampment at Lac Saint-Charles - painted in 1854, the year after he arrived in Quebec City. The adjacent gallery, "Tradition et modernite au Quebec", covers the modernist period of Quebecois art, contrasting the changing tastes and styles between the 1860s and 1940s through paintings, prints, drawings, decorative arts and sculpture. In the first part of the exhibition, paintings fight for space on the walls, much as they would have in a late-nineteenth century salon . The subsequent decades are a tug-of-war of styles, as European movements had a strong impact on Quebecois artists visiting or studying there at the time. Although born in Ontario, Horatio Walker moved to Quebec in the 1880s and became completely engrossed in the lives of the French-Canadian habitants , as shown in his The Return from the Wedding (1930). The European influence made itself felt in sculpture throughout this period as well, largely due to Rodin, as evidenced in Alfred Laliberte 's bronzes and the plaster works of Marc-Aurele de Foy Suzor-Cote . The latter is perhaps better known for his paintings, which also have a Parisian influence: Cartier Meets the Indians at Stadacona (1907) was painted shortly after his return, and the contrast between impressionistic style and traditional subject is emblematic of the entire exhibition. The works of the Group of Seven are more usually associated with the remote wilds of Ontario, but Arthur Lismer , one of the Group's founders, visited Charlevoix many times, producing pieces such as Quebec Village, Ste-Hilarion (1925). Urban life at the time is admirably recorded by Adrien Hebert . Rue St-Denis (1927) wonderfully captures the spirit of Montreal in the 1920s with the chic cut of a woman's coat contrasting with an ever-omnipresent church in the background. The contemporaneous Marc-Aurele Fortin 's best works were his impressionistic renditions of trees, as seen in The Elm at Pont-Viau , where one gigantic tree of numerous intense greens dominates the entire riverscape. The modernism of Matisse and Picasso was introduced to Canada by Alfred Pellan , who returned from Paris in 1940 to teach at Montreal's Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Pellan's comparative radicalism is best represented by his Young Woman with a White Collar (1934). The only permanent contemporary exhibition is a room devoted to Jean-Paul Riopelle on the ground floor of the Gerard-Morisset Pavilion. As you enter, you are immediately confronted by his Sun Spray (1954), a large canvas that feels like a stained-glass mosaic and leaves no doubt regarding his abstract leanings. The principal work, and the impetus for devoting the gallery to him, is L'Hommage a Rosa Luxemburg (1992), a forty-metre-long triptych, whose thirty segments create a narrative and "a painted metaphor for his life and art". The title of the piece is misleading, though - it was more of a reaction to the death of his companion of 25 years, the American painter Joan Mitchell, and the ghostly spray-painted outlines - made by placing objects both natural and man-made on the canvas - seem to suggest this sudden void. Nearby, what appear at first glance to be map cabinets have pull-out drawers - an ingenious way to put as many etchings and lithographs on display as possible. In the Charles-Baillairge Pavilion , the red-brick interior walls of the former jail have been spruced up, creating a warm atmosphere in sharp contrast to the sombre grey stonework that prevails outside. Vaillancourt's Tree on rue Durocher sweeps up into the atrium, which leads to the temporary galleries and a few of the old prison cells. Look out for the prison's tower, where Montreal sculptor David Moore has created a unique two-storey sculpture of huge wooden torsos and legs that scale the walls and a central figure that dives from the summit. The building also shares space with the Centre d'Interpretation de Champs Batailles ($3.50). Give it a miss - the disjointed narrative and sometimes unclear visuals of the centre's multimedia show don't do a great job of telling the history of the Plains of Abraham. Do have a look to see if the free temporary exhibits by the entrance are worthwhile, though.
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