Sold for: $133,250

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Ontario
A wedding gift to Andrew and Isabelle Glenny, circa 1923
By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario

Clarence Gagnon went to France in 1904 to study, and in the spring of 1907 left Paris to travel through Île-de-France, Brittany, the coast of Picardy and Normandy. He spent the summer in Brittany at Saint-Malo, Dinard and Dinan, a picturesque medieval citadel with thirteenth-century ramparts and fifteenth-century half-timbered houses. Gagnon produced a fine group of etchings of Dinan in 1907 and 1908 of Dinan street scenes. Gagnon’s time in France transformed his work beyond its earlier traditional influences from the Barbizon and Hague schools into a brighter palette and the use of fresh, en plein air effects. This striking studio painting of Dinan in the moonlight shows Gagnon’s absorption of Impressionism in its beautiful atmospheric effects. His use of blues, darkest in the starry sky, then a tone lighter in the shadows, and the overall bright bluish-white cast to the scene is exquisite. The brilliant full moon can be imagined behind the artist, its light so strong that it reveals the colours of the houses. Gagnon further shows his mastery of ambience by including lights glowing in the windows to indicate the warmth of human presence in this traditional village.

We thank Michèle Grandbois, co-author of Clarence Gagnon, 1881 - 1942: Dreaming the Landscape, for her assistance in cataloguing this work.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars