I attended the Art Film festival this weekend. I saw two short films. One was called ” Our churches, our castles”. It was a colourful plea for an official policy regarding our religious patrimony. The thesis is that the churches in this country are as much a public treasure as castles are in Europe and as such, should be protected by the state. Of course the situation is delicate as the churches belong to parishes or religious orders, but neither can afford the upkeep. But without an official policy each church is offered to the highest bidder without much concern about its future or safeguard. Some church buildings have been declared historical monument and thus are submitted to much more stringent regulations regarding any modification. They are therefore “protected” but in reality they are no better off because if no one buys them, no one can afford to maintain them in good shape. In Montreal alone there are 600 religious buildings and over half of them will be deserted/ closed/ abandoned within the next few years.
The second film was about Mucha . Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivancice, Moravia, which is near the city of Brno in the modern Czech Republic. He is the artist who painted the famous art nouveau posters of Sarah Bernhard.Those posters are what he is best known for, but through the film I discovered that there is an other side to his art. After living in Paris for several years he returned to his home land, and there illustrated important moments of his country’s history on 20 huge canvases known as the “Slav epic”. http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mucha.htm