Moonlight, Waning Winter exemplifies technical and stylistic changes that Watson’s painting underwent during the 1920s. After he acquired a car in 1923, he could carry bulky equipment—including, for the first time, sturdy wood-pulp boards on which to paint outdoors. He also turned his focus to transitional moments between the seasons. “The ploughed field emerging through the snow in March is peculiar to Canada in its pastoral regions,” Watson wrote. “I always felt the line and rhythm of forms of earth thus disclosed, and I hope to get others to see it, too.”