The Father’s Land Lost: Country versus City in the Early Novel - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 91

plus lourdes et les plus dramatiques de la Conquête: cul-de-sac des profes-
sions classiques déjà encombrées; paralysie du dynamisme et des énergies
vitales; exploitation systématique des ressources importantes aux mains
des seuls Anglais. L'avenir et les possibilités de développement normal de
toute une nation anéantis pour presque un siècle encore. Si l'on y réfléchit,
la seule voie possible était celle que trace Charles Guérin: l'enracinement
dans le sol national, qui sera l'essentiel de tout le prêche patriotique
jusqu'à l'entre-deux-guerres. [In the mid-nineteenth century, a young
writer finally stated, through the bias of transparent novelistic fiction,
some of the most weighty and dramatic consequences of the Conquest:
a dead end in the already encumbered classic professions; paralysis of
dynamism and vital energies; systematic exploitation of major resources
solely in the hands of the English. The future and possibilities for normal
development of an entire nation wiped out for nearly yet another century
later. If one reflects, the only possible path was that taken by Charles
Guérin: entrenchment in the national soil, which will be the thrust of all
patriotic preaching up to the interwar period.] 13
Moreover, our analysis of the various landscape descriptions in the
novel has led us to conclude that, in Charles Guérin , the notion of land
('le sol national') is not confined to cultivated fields, but also extends to
nature as well as to the city. Such a complex conflation also appears in
the paintings of Cornelius Krieghoff.
Country and City in Painting: Krieghoff
The Pointe-Lévis, seen and revered by the Guérin family in its voyage to
Quebec City (278), is not only a site of memory, but a site of beauty fre-
quently chosen by painters for a panoramic view of Quebec. Such is the
case with Krieghoff's Québec vu de la pointe de Lévy of 1853 (plate 4).
Constructed in parallel horizontal bands, the painting offsets them with
the strong vertical lines of the trees and tends to juxtapose alternating
light and dark zones and reds and greens rather than seek a tonal har-
mony. The natural setting in the foreground, framed by trees on each
side and tending towards the wild, as suggested by the numerous trees
and rocks, is described by Didier Prioul and Paul Bourassa as 'animé
par le traitement dynamique du premier plan où l'artiste emploie un jeu
assez souple de diagonales croisées' (556; enlivened by the dynamic
treatment of the foreground where the artist uses a quite subtle play of
crossing diagonals). While Dennis Reid sees the human figures primarily