Clarence Alphonse Gagnon. A Quebec Village Street, Winter, 1920. Oil on canvas, 56.5 x 74.2 cm.The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. © 2017 Art Gallery of Ontario AGOID.76673Carlo Catenazzi/The Globe and Mail
Painted by Clarence Alphonse Gagnon in 1920, A Quebec Village Street, Winter finds comfort in the cold. The wintry chill in the town of Baie-Saint-Paul is palpable: children bundled, dark smoke wafting from distant chimneys, afternoon shadows conspiring on snowbanks. But quiet joy infuses this vignette, premonitions of a thaw, or even an early spring: a horse trudging through a melting path, an orange sled capturing the imagination of a boy and girl, the sky a radiant, Easter-egg blue. A master of evoking rustic Quebec, Gagnon imbued this Charlevoix town with the deft brushstrokes of simplicity and forbearance. Gagnon, who was inspired by the Impressionist movement, lived and painted in France for many years before his death in 1942. "It was not the oversensitivity of the misunderstood that made me move to Paris," he said. "Over there, I paint only Canadian subjects, I dream only of Canada. The motif remains fixed in my mind, and I don't allow myself to be captivated by the charms of a new landscape. In Switzerland, Scandinavia – everywhere, I recall my French Canada."