Ice Bridge 1920

Clarence Gagnon made this pastel drawing, Ice Bridge, sometime in the early 20th century, and the way he’s built up the image with all these tiny marks reminds me of how we slowly figure things out in our own minds. Look at how the blues and whites of the ice are scumbled together. The texture is everything here, isn’t it? You can almost feel the cold, crisp air just by looking at it. Then, in the background, you have these hints of color suggesting a distant landscape. It's like he’s captured a fleeting moment, a memory of a winter day. And what about those figures crossing the ice? They’re so small, almost swallowed by the landscape, yet they’re the focal point. That makes me think of Courbet, who was interested in how humans relate to the natural world. But where Courbet felt grand, Gagnon’s piece feels much more fragile. It’s a beautiful example of how art can freeze a moment in time.