Visions of Eternity

If you are not familiar with the school of Canadian artists called “The Group of Seven,” you should be. The Toronto-based painters were at their most prolific in the ‘20s. They rightly proclaimed that their work was a celebration of the diverse and ethereal Canadian landscape.

I was recently given a small post card book consisting of 30 reproductions of oils by Lawren Harris, the founder of the group. Harris’s paintings exemplified the Group of Seven’s work with its vivid, rhythmic compositions.

I was particularly struck by a Harris quote cited in the introduction of the post card book (Pomegranate, ISBN 978-0-7649-4552-6) because the same notion has risen within me of late.

In 1924, Harris wrote, “Art s the beginning of vision into the realm of eternal life.”

I don’t feel this way about all art, but I have certainly found it to be true of much of the work of the Group of Seven.