Night, village Charlevoix

Upon returning to Canada in 1934 from a stay in Europe, Fortin moved to Sainte-Rose and began experimenting with the use of pure colours on a black surface, achieving a luminous and brilliant colour. “The black-field method is a technique that brings out the values ?? one hundred percent. It is the relationship of shadow and light in a landscape. When you put your dark green on it, it gets darker, it's more beautiful. This technique is especially valid for cloudy weather more than for sunny days. Marc-Aurele Fortin

Anyone who observes the artist painting on a black background is dumbfounded by the speed with which he applies his touches. It's a veritable whirlwind of bright colours that falls on the canvas, initially communicating an impression of an abstract work so impossible to grasp the subject he wants to deliver. Then, little by little, in these sessions carried out at high speed, we discern forms signalling the embryo of a landscape. Everything is done by instinct.

- extract from the Marc-AurèleFortin Foundation website: https://www.fondationmafortin.org/fr/huile.html

According to Marc-Aurèle Fortin, the idea of ??the mezzotint came to him after seeing oriental rugs on a black background from which the bright colours of the traditional motifs stood out. However, in the early 1990s, research led the National Gallery of Canada curator of prints Rosemarie L. Towell to believe that the idea had come to her through experimentation with an early relief print. from the 1930s. Two engravings titled La Charette au village, one with black lines on a light background and the other an intaglio print, where the white lines of the drawing emanate on a black background. This unusual manner results from the artist's constant experimentation, allowing him to define his pictorial language.
- source in French from Michèle Grandbois, l’art du promeneur, Marc-Aurèle Fortin the experience of colour, page 132.

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