Twilight, Spring Breakup

Maurice Cullen’s Twilight, Spring Breakup is a sensitive exploration of the fleeting effects of twilight on a landscape emerging from winter. Cullen’s greatest legacy in Canadian art is the fame he gave to the Caché, Devil’s and North rivers. He was captivated with describing the immediacy of a particular moment - the changing light, atmosphere and colour of the landscape and river before him. Requiring no drying time, the medium of pastel was ideally suited to Cullen working directly and spontaneously, preserving the freshness of his plein-air response directly on the support. There was no greater master with the pastel than Maurice Cullen.

Much of the work’s luminosity comes from the distinctive qualities of pastel itself. Cullen moves between passages of dense, velvety colour and areas where the pigment is more lightly applied, allowing the surface beneath to participate in the effect. The powdery brilliance of the medium seems particularly appropriate to the uncertain atmosphere of early spring and the fading evening light. Colour appears to glow across the surface, giving the landscape a remarkable sense of immediacy - as though Cullen has captured not simply a place, but a particular and passing moment in time.