Claude Langevin

Voici Le Village 24x30 Oil $4480 Framed

Coloris d 'Automne 16x20 Oil $3030 Framed

Promenade du Soir 20x24 Oil $3635 Framed

“An artist begins to form his own style when he stops imitating nature and starts interpreting it. At this stage, the distinctive features that identify individual painters are visible in each canvas.”

Claude Langevin has been painting for over 30 years. A self-taught artist to whom painting is second-nature, he continues to derive great pleasure from his art. He often finds inspiration riding the bicycle path along the route of the old Laurentian railway to Sainte-Adele, his adopted town where he settled 27 years ago. In recent years due to urban sprawl, his Laurentian surroundings have changed dramatically forcing this landscape artist even deeper into the country in search of inspiration. “When you live in a region for a long time, familiarity diminishes its beauty. You have to visit other places, find other sources of inspiration, before you can finally return and rediscover the charms of home.”

He is often inspired by winter, seeing thousands of contrasting colours in the snow, each one as vibrant as the next. Its whiteness is only superficial; like water, snow takes on the tones of the sky, becoming at times pink, blue or green, while its luminosity is also affected in infinite ways by the changing seasons.

“In my youth, I would often paint in temperatures of -20 degrees. Paint would freeze on my palette. I know better now.” Today, a wiser Langevin does his preliminary sketches outdoors and completes his canvas in comfort in his studio. When the warmer weather returns, he goes back to making direct sketches from nature of the landscapes he paints. Studio work brings its own difficulties, since the artist must rely on his imagination to recreate the colours and contours of the land. In painting outdoors he is more aware of form and closer to the reality he wishes to interpret.

Langevin notes the picturesque side of Quebec villages is gradually disappearing. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it’s a change for sure. We can continue to feel nostalgia for our childhood without necessarily feeling regret.” This connaisseur of antique furniture and heritage buildings interprets an era and serves as an ambassador for his region