Gatineau Hills

Commission for Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute, 1950 (a gift of the Class of 1950 to the school)

A.Y. Jackson followed a pattern of travelling three seasons a year on sketching excursions and made an annual trip to Quebec in early spring. It was in Quebec that he earned the moniker, Père Raquette, or ‘Father Snowshoe’, for his practice of venturing out into the snow to paint “en plein air”. He skillfully committed the scene to panel before his paints thickened in the cold air, rendering them unworkable. The process from oil sketch to finished canvas was involved and methodical. Jackson would often create supplementary drawings with shorthand numbered annotations to elaborate on shades and colours and provide further details for the final painting. The journey from first opening his old sketch box in Quebec to perfecting the finished canvas in Toronto could take anywhere from weeks to several years. The artist’s treatment of the Quebec landscape differed significantly from his depictions of northern Ontario. While his pictures of northern Ontario emphasized the absence of man, the undulating hills of Quebec were often punctuated with signs of human influence. The barn is a classic motif of these excursions into Quebec. “Gatineau Hills” embodies the soft and rounded forms with a muted palette and an easy rhythm that became Jackson’s trademark. In “Gatineau Hills”, the barns sit like boulders in a stream, anchoring the picture, while Jackson’s brushwork ebbs and flows around them.