Commune with the Forces of Nature
Almost one and a half centuries separate these two works, and yet, these two artists created their work with the same objective in mind: to focus on a dramatic event experienced by a part of the working class population.
In his work, Joseph Légaré depics the cholera that struck Quebec City in 1832, where it would claim the lives of 3,451 people. As for Melvin Charney, he condemns the non-conservation of the working-class home as a legacy and thus, the non-preservation of the collective memory conveyed by the houses built by their owners. Their destruction results in a loss of collective identity. In both works, the religious dimension is there but is interpreted differently in each work.