‘My Land(scape) is Winter’ - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 298

assessment of her coming to writing that 'je sentais que je pouvais ma-
nier les choses' (Santoro, McPherson, and Bascom, 626; I felt I could
control things). And, the image of orthogonal lines and geometric cir-
cles superimposed on the surface of the ice, as well as the statements by
the three writers, might well provide a parallel with and perspective
from which to approach the contemporary winterscape in painting,
where winter is 'fenced in' by the frame of the canvas.
The Contemporary Winterscape
Current landscape painting, often centred in the Charlevoix region of
Gagnon, Lemieux, and Richard, also reflects a contrast between nature
and culture and, indeed, a more complex, even contradictory combina-
tion of cultures, in that the subject matter remains traditional and
pointed towards the past, while the vision and technique incorporate
new ways of seeing and rendering the landscape, often in a geometric
or architectural manner.
The combination of tradition and innovation amply characterizes the
work of Bruno Côté, as exemplified in his pochade (colour sketch) Rang
Cap-aux-Corbeaux, circa 2000 (plate 14). 26 Winter appears to dominate
the canvas in massive bands of white and blue that run from the snow-
covered north shore in the near ground, to the icy waters of the Saint
Lawrence River, then to the western end of the île aux Coudres across
from Baie-Saint-Paul, and finally to the south shoreline, shrouded in
clouds and covered by heavy sky in the far ground. In the middle
ground, however, the clustered houses exude a warmth embodied in
the radiant pink tints that link them together as a community and that
are also imparted to the crest of the snow-covered fence in the fore-
ground, the vertical stand of trees to the right, and even, in traces, to the
snow, river, and sky. As Roxane Babinska puts it in her description of
the pochade , 'L'air est une masse, la lumière pénètre difficilement la
matière. Elle arrive comme un glacier dans le ciel et dans ce silence les
demeures sont des pensées roses.' (62; The air is a mass; light, penetrat-
ing matter with great difficulty, arrives like a glacier in the sky; and in
this silence the dwellings are like pink pansies or thoughts.) For 'pen-
sées' the translator chooses 'pansies' in the English text of the topic (62),
but the word 'thoughts' also works to emphasize the human contrast
with and dominance over winter. Despite the small percentage of can-
vas space it occupies, 27 the warmer colour, by its intensity and disper-
sion, by its uniqueness and appeal, is able to withstand and overcome