Impressionism and Nationalism in the Early Twentieth Century - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 149

oeuvres de Morrice: l'architecture … Des immeubles sont souvent cou-
pés en deux pour fermer la composition comme dans … Maison de ferme
québécoise . Les bâtiments sont presque toujours placés parallèlement au
plan de la toile, rompant ainsi avec les théories de la perspective; il n'y
a donc presque jamais de point de fuite.' (75; Another important com-
ponent of Morrice's works is architecture … The buildings are often cut
in two to close the composition, as in Maison de ferme québécoise . The
buildings are almost always placed parallel to the plane of the canvas,
thereby breaking with theories of perspective; there is thus almost
never a vanishing point.)
The omnipresent wall, parallel and proximate to the frontal plane,
also displays clear evidence of Morrice's brushwork and serves to set
off the web of graceful arabesques formed by the ice-incrusted branches
of the tree and continued by the curves of the roof and the fence.
According to G. Blair Laing, 'in a style reminiscent of art nouveau the
bare branches of a tree emerge from the right foreground, creating a
strong pattern against the grey walls of the farmhouse' (30).
The house is also inserted into a mass of snow, seen at twilight, which
is less compelling for its reflection of light or its heavy texture than for
the subtle variations of colour that Morrice imparts to it, a symphony of
yellow, grey, and white, among the less striking hues of the spectrum,
which are picked up in different degrees of dominance in the wall of the
farmhouse. The pink of the sleigh, contrasting at once with the blue of
the sky, the grey of the wall, and the yellowish white of the snow, but
suggested in the tints of the house window, provides a visual entry
point into the painting, yet the sleigh seems to be going nowhere, im-
mobilized by the snow, travelling uphill due to the elevated viewpoint,
and heading towards a barrier of buildings and trees in the distance.
Time seems as frozen as the landscape, both captured by the masses of
colour and matrix of lines that foreground (literally) the virtuoso per-
formance of the artist, who has imposed his unique vision on this typi-
cal Quebec scene. The ultimate space of this painting is, as Esther
Trépanier contends, that of the canvas itself (17).
As removed from Quebec as was Morrice, Clarence Gagnon was just
as attached to his terroir , specifically to Charlevoix, on the north bank of
the Saint Lawrence River. 12 And, while the art of Morrice is idiosyn-
cratic, Gagnon's painting is highly typical of the Quebec tradition of
landscape art, hardly surprising for a student of Brymner (in Montreal),
a disciple of Walker (on the île d'Orléans), a friend of Morrice (in Paris),
and a mentor of René Richard (in Baie-Saint-Paul). Gagnon's La Croix de