The artwork titled “December” was created by artist Alex Colville in 1979. It is a piece from Colville’s calendar series from the same year and fits within the Contemporary Realism art movement, specifically characterized as wildlife painting.
In the artwork, viewers are presented with an atmospheric perspective of a road cutting through a vast landscape under a heavy, overcast sky. Dominating the composition is a single crow in mid-flight, positioned prominently in the foreground and seen from a lower perspective, as if the viewer is looking up from below. The bird’s wings are outstretched, spanning almost the width of the image, and its dark silhouette contrasts sharply with the textured, gray clouds in the background. The road itself bends gently into the distance, marked by a dividing line and contextualizing the crow’s flight in relation to the human-made environment. The word “December” is inscribed below the image, anchoring the piece in the wintery, end-of-year timeframe that the composition evokes.