In L’heure du train, dated 1966, Jean Paul Lemieux deploys his most convincing aesthetic arsenal, coupling it with the narrative power so brilliantly illustrated in this winter scene. “The hour of the train” is that of the train’s arrival at the station: a small red shack toward which scattered cars and people are converging, tiny brown dots on the thick blanket of snow. A cloud of smoke rises from the station chimney, another from the train, which is about to brake. At the heart of this picturesque scene is the reunion of travellers with loved ones who have come to greet them. Although Lemieux is not a regionalist painter, his imagery extends to the confines of his home country, reaching to a universal and unifying human experience. Tire tracks on the road suggest a mild end of winter, when the roadway is slippery under the melting snow. One’s gaze is wholly caught by the vanishing line that opens up like scissors in the lower right, running beyond the edge of the painting—this is where the story begins.
The “Lemieux effect” takes on its full meaning in L’heure du train, in which space and time, entirely imagined by the artist, are reduced to a few masses and lines swallowed up in a field textured by palette knife. The grey sky seems to be clearing in the upper left corner, with light reflecting on the snowy plain. The angle selected for the composition and the slightly unstable horizon give viewers the impression that they are walking on the shoulder of that road toward the station themselves. The vast, white expanse crystallizes an epic scene of disarming though formidable simplicity that leaves no one indifferent. Lemieux signs a masterful painting here, one that can’t fail to recall the famous Train de midi (1956, collection of the National Gallery of Canada), painted 10 years previously, and Le Rapide (1968, collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec). Lemieux’s words, noted by Guy Robert, are eloquent with respect to the significance of this motif in his work: “I’ve often travelled by train, because you have the time to see the landscape coming, to let it appear, spread out, and then disappear. It’s a fascinating spectacle that you watch serenely pass by the window.”
(Annie Lafleur / Trad.: Ron Ross)
