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CCI Newsletter, No. 38, 2007

Recovering the Decorative Interior of St. Ninian’s Cathedral, Antigonish, Nova Scotia

by Wendy Baker and Helen McKay, Conservators – Fine Arts, CCI

The results of a CCI investigation of the interior surfaces of St. Ninian’s Cathedral in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, have contributed to the long-term recovery and preservation plan now under consideration. The purpose of CCI’s investigation, which was carried out with a private-sector conservator in April 2006, was to determine how to remove the many layers of overpaint hiding the original decorative scheme devised and executed by Ozias Leduc and his workshop in the early 20th century. After conducting a number of tests and extrapolating the overall condition of this original decorative scheme, treatment recommendations were outlined for full or for partial recovery and duplication of the original art and stencil work on the walls and ceilings. The St. Ninian’s Restoration Committee and their Architectural Conservation Consultant have used this information in the development of a large-scale master plan for the overall restoration of the interior of the Cathedral.

St. Ninian’s Cathedral is unique in the region — an imposing historic structure built in a Roman Basilica style. It is the Episcopal Seat for the Catholic Diocese of Antigonish, which includes the counties of Antigonish, Pictou, and Guysborough on the eastern Nova Scotia mainland as well as the Island of Cape Breton. The church was dedicated to St. Ninian, a 5th-century British saint with connections to the early Church of Scotland, by the descendants of the Highland Scots settlers.

Construction of the Cathedral began in 1867 and was completed in 1874. The walls were built of locally quarried limestone and sandstone, and the roof was tiled with slate from Scotland. Beautiful stained glass windows adorned the sacristy and outside walls, illuminating the length of the nave. The bells came from Dublin, and the organ from Boston. In 1899, twenty-five years after the structure was completed, Ozias Leduc was commissioned to design and later to undertake the decoration of the interior plastered surfaces.

Ozias Leduc (1864–1955) was a well-known Quebec artist and painter of church interiors. He had learned the art of church decoration in the early 1880s, as apprentice to both Luigi Cappello in Montreal and Adolphe Rho in Yamamiche, Quebec. By the mid 1880s he was working independently on church interiors in Joliette as well as on his own parish church in Saint-Hilaire. Leduc was exposed to the works of Impressionist and Symbolist painters, as well as to Art Nouveau, in 1897, on a trip to London and Paris with Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. Artists such as Gustave Moreau, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, and Edward Burne-Jones left a lasting impression.

When Leduc returned from Europe he took on a number of new commissions, one of which was St. Ninian’s Cathedral. The actual painting of the comprehensive decorative scheme likely began in 1902, carried out by Leduc and his assistants. Leduc’s paintings of this period are characterized by conventional interpretations of religious subjects and a generic approach to the depiction of religious or spiritual figures. What sets his decoration above the ordinary is the masterful rendering of the decorative elements, executed with thin paint scumbles in subdued colours applied over a neutral base tone. This technique produces a beautiful, ethereal quality to the painting reminiscent of the work of Puvis de Chavannes.

Leduc and his assistants used a fresco-secco technique (oil applied to dried plaster surfaces) to decorate all the ceiling, arcade, wall, and column surfaces in St. Ninian’s. Tondos of The Nativity, Christ the Good Shepherd, The Crucifixion, and The Ascension, each 4 m in diameter, were painted on the nave ceiling along with smaller paintings set into quatrefoil forms representing The Lamb of God, The Eye of God, and The Holy Spirit. All of these paintings were surrounded by elaborate stencilled borders. The arcade spandrels were painted with figures of saints and apostles set into elaborate trompe-l’oeil architectural niches, surrounded with intricate stencil decorations. The chancel vault had a large tondo of God the Father, surrounded by an elaboration of patterned borders and flanked on either side by angels. More angels were painted on the chancel spandrels, and over the chancel arch leading into the sacristy were the Gaelic words “TIGH DHE” or “House of God.”

The complete decorative scheme can now be fully appreciated only through archival photographs or original sketches. Starting in 1937, Leduc’s work was progressively altered both by partial reworking of figurative elements and by full-scale overpainting with monochromatic colours. Most of the stencil work and original background paint are now completely concealed by multiple layers of overpaint. As well, moisture problems from roof leaks in some parts of the Cathedral, and contractive forces from multiple layers of overpaint in other areas, are responsible for localized heavy flaking of both original and overpaint layers.

In 2002, the Cathedral Historical Committee requested that CCI undertake a conservation assessment of the interior surfaces of St. Ninian’s (the emphasis being primarily on St. Ninian’s canvas paintings). It was recommended, at that time, and during a later visit in 2004, that conservation and stabilization of the painted architectural elements be carried out. Our work in the spring of 2006 provided on-site testing as well as analysis of cross sections — both confirming the presence of Leduc’s surfaces under, in some cases, five or more layers of overpaint. Based on these results, we prepared a report that includes options for the safe removal of the overpaint, expected outcomes, procedures for consolidation, and potential time estimates for recovery of decorative surfaces. This information will assist in the long-term recovery and preservation of this remarkable decorative interior.