MONTREAL -- Friends and dignitaries gathered in an east-end church Monday to praise the late Jean-Paul Riopelle, an abstract painter and free spirit whose work helped to shake up Quebec art and society.

The state funeral, held amid a heavy snowstorm, closed with applause from a crowd of more than 900 after tributes from Premier Bernard Landry and actor Jean-Louis Roux, chairman of the Canada Council.

"He was the Quebec artist who's the best known throughout the world," said Landry, who cited Riopelle's role in Refus global, a 1948 declaration by Quebec artists of freedom from dictates of the Roman Catholic Church.

"We'll never forget you."

Like Riopelle, the ceremony was unconventional. There was lots of praise but there were no prayers. Instead of choir hymns, there was music by his friends: a jazz tune by pianist Vic Vogel and a rap number by the trio Loco Locass.

Riopelle, who moved to Paris at an early age and made his reputation alongside other leading lights of the 20th century art world, died last Tuesday at 78.

The non-traditional atmosphere of his funeral stemmed from the fact that he was an atheist.

Some friends said he would never have approved of L'Eglise Immaculee-Conception, where he was baptised and married, as the location for his funeral, even in such a distinctly non-religious but respectful atmosphere.

However, because Riopelle left no instructions on how or where a ceremony should be held, the ornate church was used, as one of the few buildings available that could accommodate a large crowd of well-wishers.

Pierre Gauvreau and Madeleine Arbour, two co-signatories of the Refus global, refused to attend the funeral for their colleague. They argued that a church building was the wrong place to honour an outspokenly anti-clerical individual.

Riopelle's abstract 1940s works stemmed from a movement called the Automatistes, which urged an automatic link between painting and thought, much like the stream-of-consciousness approach to writing employed by French poet Andre Breton and other prominent surrealists.

Refus global set the stage for the Quiet Revolution, a major attitudinal shakeup that took Quebec abruptly into the modern era in the 1960s under Premier Jean Lesage's reform-minded Liberal government.

Instead of a priest, the funeral - punctuated by frequent periods of silence - was co-ordinated by Musee du Quebec director John Porter.

Champlain Charest, who first met Riopelle in 1968 in Paris, has said he was surprised by the major outpouring of accolades for his longtime friend, especially as the painter's work had been often ignored and even ridiculed.

Roux, who addressed his remarks to Riopelle, said, "For anyone else, this would be the day for a last goodbye. But not for you. Your work will always be with us."