Overlooking the Valley of the Gouffre, Charlevoix 1915

Clarence Gagnon made this painting, Overlooking the Valley of the Gouffre, Charlevoix, with oil paint, and it's like he's trying to capture the cold itself. I love how the brushstrokes aren’t trying to hide what they are; each dab and dash feels like a decision, an active process, not just a picture of a scene, but a feeling of the space itself. See how the blue in the mountains isn't just blue? It's got all these other colors mixed in, making it vibrate. The foreground, with its dark trees against the snow, it feels like a curtain, or a screen, that we’re looking through, into the distance. What’s amazing is the way the surface is worked, the paint seems thick in some places and thin in others, allowing the materiality of the paint to make its presence felt. Gagnon's got something in common with the Fauves, like Matisse, playing with color and form so freely, and it makes you wonder, is it about the place, or about how we see it?