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Quote by Lawren Harris

“For the arts epitomize, intensify and clarify the experience of beauty for us as nothing else can.”

Quote by Lawren Harris

Author

Lawren Harris, born on October 23, 1885, and died on January 29, 1970, was a Canadian painter known for his paintings of the Canadian north. His work, characterized by cold tones and geometric abstraction, has had a profound impact on the Canadian art scene. more

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“The power of beauty at work in man, as the artist has always known, is severe and exacting, and once evoked, will never leave him alone, until he brings his work and life into some semblance of harmony with its spirit.”

Men Spirit Artist Known Beauty Harmony Severe Semblance Work And Life

Author:Lawren Harris

“Mind alone remains stable, and watches the chaos of phenomena, and knows that there is a plastic unity of existence - a changeless harmony - behind the everchanging.”

Knows Mind Change Behinds Existence Watches Harmony Remains Unity Chaos Stable Plastic

Author:Lawren Harris

“I myself incline to drift, to accept a lesser situation rather than strive for a greater, and yet, I know that character in life and art is only made by an effort that is quite beyond one's ordinary everyday acceptance of things as they are.”

Knows Art Made Character Effort Situation Accepting Greater Acceptance Ordinary Art Is Strive Everyday Incline

Author:Lawren Harris

“It requires a conviction that every people has a unique contribution to give to mankind, and that this they must make or remain sterile, subservient, sallow, and that this contribution they must have commenced to make before they can hope to understand the spirit that informs all great works and inspires all noble living.”

People Giving Spirit Mankind Inspire Unique Conviction Noble Contribution Great Work Subservient

Author:Lawren Harris

“It requires courage to face and to conquer the immense weight of inertia and the dead and dying traditions and sophistications that clutter the minds of men and mould them into the mimicry of living ways.”

Men Way Mind Faces Courage Dying Tradition Weight Conquer Immense Clutter Inertia Sophistication Mould Mimicry

Author:Lawren Harris

“Of course there must be the urge, the indefinable longing to get something through into terms of plastic presentation, but results are nearly always unpredictable.”

Desire Courses Term Results Longing Urges Plastic Unpredictable Presentation Indefinable

Author:Lawren Harris

“Solo artists are generally totally insane. Elton John? Slightly eccentric. George Michael? He's mad as custard.”

Artist Mad Insane Solo Eccentric Custard

Author:Noel Gallagher

“If we view a great mountain soaring into the sky, it may excite us, evoke an uplifted feeling within us. There is an interplay of something we see outside of us with our inner response. The artist takes that response and its feelings and shapes it on canvas with paint so that when finished it contains the experience.”

Ifs May Feelings Artist Views Sky Shapes Mountain Experience Response Paint Finished Canvas Soar Evoke

Author:Lawren Harris

“I felt the strange brooding lonely presence of Nature fostering a new race, a new age, and as part of it, a new expression in Art. It was an unfolding of the heart itself through the effect of environment, of people, of place, and time.”

People Heart Art Age Felt Race Environment Effects Strange Expression Future Lonely New Age Unfolding Brooding Fostering Place And Time

Author:Lawren Harris

“Art is not an amusement, nor a distraction, nor is it, as many men maintain, an escape from life. On the contrary, it is a high training of the soul, essential to the soul's growth, to its unfoldment.”

Men Art Soul Growth Essentials Training Art Is Contrary Distraction Amusement

Author:Lawren Harris