Paysage d’automne à Piedmont

A gifted watercolourist and tireless traveller, Fortin bicycled through the countryside in search of beautiful vistas carrying only his watercolour box and a roll of paper. At that time, the forty-year-old kept company with the painter Clarence Gagnon and the poet Albert Ferland, who wished to highlight the richness of the Quebec terroir by setting the picturesque landscapes of every region at the heart of their work. Above all else, Fortin admired trees; their enveloping and majestic presence cradles this sponge watercolour, which is characterized by openings in the painted surface attributable to the way the paper dries.