Moonlight, Waning Winter, 1924

Painting by Homer Watson of a row of houses in the middle of rolling fields, partially covered by snow. The moon shines in a pastel-coloured sky and a single large tree is in the foreground.

Homer Watson, Moonlight, Waning Winter, 1924, oil on beaverboard screwed to framework, 86.6 x 121.9 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Moonlight, Waning Winter exemplifies technical and stylistic changes that Watson’s painting underwent during the 1920s. After he acquired a car in 1923, he could carry bulky equipment—including, for the first time, sturdy wood-pulp boards on which to paint outdoors. He also turned his focus to transitional moments between the seasons. “The ploughed field emerging through the snow in March is peculiar to Canada in its pastoral regions,” Watson wrote. “I always felt the line and rhythm of forms of earth thus disclosed, and I hope to get others to see it, too.”

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Moonlight, Waning Winter - Art Canada