Maurice Galbraith Cullen 1866 - 1934

Private Collection

Changes in the seasons or conditions of weather were constant and favourite subjects for Cullen, and he seemed never to tire of them. Nor did he ever seem to have to look far for some new and, for him, inspiring variation on his constant theme. So when he addressed this particular Winter Break Up, it was as if he had never considered the matter before. With a fresh, keen eye to the quality of the late snow, and to the way the light fell on the trees, the glassy surface of the water and on the distant hills, Cullen set out to create this fine canvas.

The attraction of this particular canvas lies in the way he has deployed each of the many elements that constitute the whole ensemble. From the gray sky at the top, against which the tree-tops of the foreground are set, down to the blueish but still snowy hills in the far distance, we come finally to the two lower bands of the composition that make it the entrancing work that it is. The snow-covered riverbank has started to lose its winter mantle and the pattern of the exposed rock and foliage now emerging creates a mysterious set of hieroglyphs. The water creates a different kind of texture that sinuates itself across the lower half of the painting. And finally, Cullen has bolstered the composition with a stand of dark spruce trees, which acts like an anchor for the foreground, a brace against the riverbank, a dark contrast to all the snow and light.

Cullen had been schooled in France, where he had absorbed the tenets of Impressionism. These practices and ideas he brought back to Canada, but he was wise enough and imaginative enough to realize that quite a different set of criteria were required to adapt those precept to the Canadian landscape and even more to the quality of light in Canada. In a picture such as this one can see how completely he mastered the translation and made it fit the characteristics of the Laurentians.