Maud Lewis Winter Sleigh Giclee Print | Nova Scotia Folk Art

Details

This 1959 covered bridge scene represents one of Maud Lewis's most beloved and recognizable serial images—so iconic that a similar version would eventually appear on a commemorative Canadian postage stamp in 2020, fifty years after her death. Horse-drawn sleighs glide through fresh snow toward a brightly colored covered bridge, surrounded by snow-laden pine trees and the quintessential rural architecture of Maritime Nova Scotia. It's Lewis painting what she loved most: the hustle and bustle of community life, winter's pristine beauty, and the timeless romance of sleigh rides.
The covered bridge series holds special significance in Lewis's body of work. Visual arts educator Harold Pearse called these paintings "truly icons," noting how the elements remain consistent across variations—sleighs approaching, entering, or emerging from covered bridges, creating what he described as moments of transition between darkness and light, confinement and freedom. The imagery resonated so deeply with Canadian identity that when Canada Post chose three Lewis paintings for their 2020 holiday collection, a covered bridge scene was selected to represent domestic mail.
The 1959 dating places this work in a particularly interesting period of Lewis's career. She'd been painting steadily for two decades, living in that tiny Marshalltown cottage with Everett, developing the subjects and compositional strategies that would define her artistic legacy. These were still the quiet years before national fame—she was painting for neighbors, tourists stopping at her roadside cottage, and the small but growing circle of collectors who appreciated her distinctive vision.
Covered bridges themselves held deep meaning in Maritime culture. These architectural landmarks protected travelers from weather, provided shelter for social gatherings, and marked important routes through rural communities. By 1959, many were disappearing—victims of modernization, deteriorating wood, and the shift to automobile-friendly infrastructure. Lewis painted them as they existed in memory and imagination: bright red or yellow structures standing proud against winter landscapes, still serving horse-drawn sleighs rather than automobiles.
Notice the visual complexity Lewis achieved within her characteristic simplified style. The composition creates distinct foreground, middle ground, and background layers—sleighs moving through snow in the foreground, the covered bridge as the central focal point, and brightly colored village buildings beyond, all framed by snow-covered evergreens. The eye follows the sleighs' path naturally through the scene, witnessing what one scholar called "the artist's love of the hustle and bustle of the town."
Multiple sleighs add wonderful narrative possibility to the scene. Are they all headed to the same destination? Is this a social gathering, a market day, a church Sunday? Lewis didn't provide specific stories, but she created compositions that invited viewers to imagine the human connections, the community bonds, the shared experiences of rural Maritime life. Each sleigh carries its own small drama—families bundled against winter cold, horses stepping carefully through snow, the anticipation of arriving somewhere warm.
The covered bridge itself becomes a kind of threshold—a liminal space between departure and arrival, countryside and village, isolation and community. Sleighs entering darkness emerge into light on the other side. It's a perfect metaphor for Lewis's own artistic practice: transforming the darkness of poverty, pain, and isolation into bright, joyful visions that brought light to others. Whether she intended this symbolic reading doesn't matter—the imagery works on multiple levels simultaneously.
Lewis's technique by 1959 was fully developed. Everett cut boards to her specifications—typically the 12x14 or similar dimensions she could manage given her limited arm mobility from arthritis. She coated each board white, drew outlines, then applied paint straight from the tube without mixing or blending. Those bright primary colors—reds, blues, yellows, greens—sit side by side in bold patches, creating visual energy and that immediately recognizable Lewis aesthetic.
The snow-covered landscape demonstrates her mastery of winter scenes. Pure white snow creates negative space that makes the colored elements pop brilliantly—red bridges, bright sleighs, colorful buildings, dark green pines. She understood intuitively how to balance warm and cool tones, how to create depth despite flat perspective, how to suggest movement and activity without complex rendering.
By 1959, Lewis had painted enough covered bridge scenes that collectors began specifically requesting them. The serial nature of her practice meant she repeated successful compositions, each time varying details slightly—different numbers of sleighs, different bridge colors, slightly altered building arrangements. No two were identical, proving she wasn't mechanically reproducing but actively engaging with each painting, finding fresh interest in familiar subjects.
This period also captures Lewis still selling paintings for just a few dollars each—typically two to three dollars, occasionally up to five for larger works. The idea that these paintings would eventually sell for tens of thousands of dollars, appear on national postage stamps, and define Canadian folk art would have seemed incomprehensible. She painted for survival, for pleasure, for the satisfaction of creating beauty and sharing it with whoever stopped at her door.
The covered bridge series speaks to something fundamentally nostalgic in human experience—the longing for simpler times, traditional ways, communities connected by shared journeys rather than separated by distance. Lewis understood this intuitively. She wasn't making political statements about modernization or cultural loss. She was simply painting what she loved, what brought her joy, what connected her to happy memories and hopeful visions.
That her covered bridge paintings eventually became national symbols—chosen for postage stamps marking the 50th anniversary of her death—speaks to how perfectly she captured something essential about Canadian identity and winter experience. The image of horse-drawn sleighs approaching covered bridges in pristine snow resonates across generations, regions, and cultural backgrounds. It's universally understood visual language expressing warmth, community, and beauty in winter.
This museum-quality Giclee reproduction captures every nuance of Lewis's bold palette and distinctive technique. The snow maintains its pristine white, the covered bridge glows with color, the sleighs convey their sense of purposeful movement, and the surrounding landscape creates perfect winter atmosphere. The bold, rectilinear brushstrokes characteristic of Lewis's arthritis-shaped style remain visible and contribute to the work's authentic folk art character.
Perfect for anyone who cherishes Canadian folk art, postal stamp imagery, covered bridge history, winter sleigh scenes, or Maritime heritage. This painting represents Lewis at her most iconic—creating compositions so perfectly expressive of place, season, and cultural memory that they eventually became national symbols.
Bring home this piece of Canadian iconography. Let these sleighs approaching the covered bridge remind you that the simplest subjects, painted with genuine love and vision, can become timeless symbols connecting generations to shared heritage and beauty.