The composition, for instance, reflects the geometric obsessions of Colville’s later work, with a strong diagonal form cutting across the canvas, from upper left to lower right of the picture plane. Canadian soldiers walking through the mire of the Scheldt estuary in Holland are depicted as a series of plodding figures receding into the background, their collective weight seeming to push the figure in the foreground from his position in the lower right-hand corner out into our view.   The technique breaks up the rigid geometry of the composition, introducing an element of softness to the hard lines that underlie all of Colville’s images. While this work lacks the drama of Horse and Train, 1954, and others of the 1950s, it contains the seeds of Colville’s concern with the place of humans in a shattered world. These figures proceed by force of will—set in motion by the orders of others but sustained only through their own individual agency.   This Spotlight is excerpted from Alex Colville: Life & Work by Ray Cronin.