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Gaertner was one of the greatest painters of the Cleveland School. Like other Cleveland artists, he found inspiration from his travels within the United States in places like Pittsburgh’s industrial landscape and the mountains of West Virginia.
Gaertner’s work is highly expressive, moody, and sometimes disconcerting, conveying his apprehension with the growing industrial progress of his time and its effects on the natural landscape. He developed his own style of expressive realism and became an expert of evocative, moody lighting effects. His color palette often included earthy tones and muted colors, reflecting the industrial and rural settings he painted.
In "Winter Lake Scene," the snowy, sweeping landscape fills the frame, broken up only by a buliding in the center at the edge of the water, likely a mill. This industrial structure interrupts the landscape as a foreboding sign of what's to come — the landscape depleted, the water polluted. The beauty of the hills and water are highlighted, while the somber earth tones around them add an unsettling tone of the impending destruction. Gaertner’s unique vision caused his notoriety to rise in the 1940s when this work was painted, and he earned a reputation as an expert of depicting the American Scene.