Sainte-Rose (circa 1928), circa 1928

Gallery Gevik, Toronto Galerie Valentin, Montreal Private Collection, Montreal

It was after a short trip to England and France in 1920 that Marc-Aurèle Fortin began to work seriously as an artist and to show his work. His paintings included scenes of the island of Montreal, largely rural at the time, and of his birthplace Sainte-Rose, north of the island. In the summers, he traveled to Quebec City as well as to the Île d’Orléans and Charlevoix regions, drawing and painting houses and rural scenes. Fortin first experimented with watercolour in 1918. He was drawn to the medium but also found it very challenging. After painting several studies of trees in 1920, he was dissatisfied with his progress and temporarily abandoned watercolour painting. In the mid-to-late 1920s Fortin re-introduced watercolour into his repertoire; his mastery of the technique is demonstrated in “Sainte-Rose”. Combined with the use of charcoal, the artwork explores all the possibilities of the medium, from soft washes of grey in the roofs to precise outlines in the windows and tree branches. “Sainte-Rose” is a composition brimming with subject matter, including farm equipment, human labour, and multiple buildings that are quintessentially Fortin, with their characteristic gable roofs and dormer windows. As with many Canadian artists, Marc-Aurèle Fortin was drawn to the changing of the seasons as subject matter. “Sainte-Rose” presents a scene during autumn, marked by many indicators of the period of transition: the green grass, the leafless trees, the laundry hanging on the clothesline, and perhaps most importantly, the farmer in the lower right corner turning over the soil for the winter.