Gaspé Landscape: Anse-aux-Gascons
Artist
Marc-Aurèle Fortin
Sainte-Rose, Quebec, 1888 – Macamic, Quebec, 1970
Title
Gaspé Landscape: Anse-aux-Gascons
Date
Between 1941 and 1945
Materials
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
69.8 x 87.3 cm
Credits
Claire Dalmé Bequest, inv. 2010.653
Collection
Quebec and Canadian Art
By repeatedly portraying the same scenes – in Sainte-Rose, the Hochelaga neighbourhood, Saint-Siméon, Bagotville and Anse-aux-Gascons – Fortin betrayed his relative indifference to subject; he was far more concerned with developing his formal language. Although, like Alexander Bercovitch, André Biéler and A. Y. Jackson, he tended to focus on landscapes that retained the look of a bygone age, he made little attempt to portray them with verisimilitude. This view of Anse-aux-Gascons and the six other known works that resemble it may well have been executed partly on site, for the artist had lodgings only a short distance away.
© Fondation Marc-Aurèle Fortin / SOCAN (2020)
