Painting Description

This painting was inspired by an old photo from my files. I was attracted to the cutter with its offset shaft arrangement. Setting the horse off centre to the cutter makes progress easier, as one of the cutter runners follows in a track broken by the horse’s feet. In this piece, however, the snow is not deep because the snow plough had already partially cleared the road. When I started painting country life in Waterloo County in the late 1960’s, many of the secondary country roads, like this one north of Millbank in the heart of the then exclusively Amish country, were seldom ploughed and so the use of cutters and sleighs was favoured. These days the chance to see a cutter in use is very rare indeed as a ploughed paved road makes cutter and sleigh traffic very difficult. I added the companion dog to this painting near the end more as a compositional item, although dogs are often constant companions in the country.

This image is available for Licensing. Contact Cynthia [email protected] for inquiries.