Frederick Simpson Coburn 1871 - 1960

Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal

Private Collection, London, England

For many, the thoughts of a Canadian winter in the country bring forth visions of blinding snow and a cold, bleak landscape devoid of life.  But to some, like Coburn, a long trip to town with a team of oxen hauling the only harvest of winter, a load of logs, was both beautiful and attractive to the eye.

In Chatting on the Logging Trail, Coburn has shown us a winter far from cold.  The sun is shining, the sky is clear,  and one gets the feeling of glowing warmth.  Snow covers the ground and shadows form as the sun sets over the trees, radiating a golden halo over the scene.  In the foreground, the red cariole catches the eye, as do the bows on the heads of the oxen, the mitts and ceinture fleché of the teamster and the barking dog.

Evelyn Coburn writes, "Coburn began by painting the Quebec winter countryside with its acres of snow, vivid blue skies... and fir trees."

The artist was struck one day by a scene that took place immediately outside his Melborne studio window: a team of horses hauling logs neatly piled on a sledge.  Henceforth, this became his signature theme.  But as Evelyn Coburn explains:

What appeared at the time to be a new subject born of sudden inspiration was, in fact, the re-emergence of a previous one, which had originally appeared in his illustrations for two of [poet Dr. William Henry] Drummond's books [of habitant life].

Coburn was also inspired by the few remaining teams of working oxen still used at that time in Quebec's less settled areas.  In this fine landscape, we see before us how he uses both strength of colour and subtlety of tone to show how the farmland dips and rises in the distance and binds the sky and foreground into a perfect setting for the central interest of the cedars, oxen, men, and sleighs.

This is a very early example of a subject the artist would become best-known for and perhaps the most monumental Coburn ever to come to auction.