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拍品专文
Widely considered one of Canada’s most important artists of the twentieth century, Lawren Harris has moreover recently garnered recognition as one of the leading masters of American Modernism as a whole. The 2015-16 exhibition The Idea of the North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris was notably curated by actor and collector Steve Martin and co-organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with the focus of placing Harris' innovative work in context with his contemporaries, such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Marsden Hartley, who similarly transformed the unique landscape of the continent into captivating experimentations with color and shape. In parallel with the Stieglitz Circle artists in New York, Harris and the Group of Seven artist collective he founded in Canada created striking visions reflecting inspiration from journeys to the Northern Territories. Mountain Sketch LXIII epitomizes the forceful yet transcendent reflections of nature that have rightly established Harris among the icons of American Modernism.
Born in Brantford, Ontario, Harris studied at St. Andrew’s College in Toronto and then in Berlin from 1904-08. When he returned to Toronto, he formed friendships with other Canadian artists looking to create works outside the conservative, realist framework of their national art. Beginning around 1911, the group, including Franklin Carmichael, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and F.H. Varley, began to regularly meet at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto to discuss each other’s work and share ideas about infusing feeling and mysticism within their paintings. In 1920, they had their first exhibition as the Group of Seven at the Art Gallery of Toronto and officially identified themselves as a new school of landscape painting. Their work was firmly supported by the National Gallery of Canada, and their influence continued to grow throughout the 1920s.
Beginning in 1919, Harris financed trips so that their circle of artists could travel together to seek inspiration within the Canadian landscape. Following sojourns in the Algoma Region and along Lake Superior’s North Shore, in 1924 Harris first ventured to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies on a sketching trip with A.Y. Jackson. This trip inspired Harris’ first mountain subjects, which became the hallmark of his oeuvre. Harris set out on annual sketching trips throughout the rest of the decade, exploring the mountain motif.
Painted circa 1929, the present work depicts Jasper Park’s Victoria Cross Range, including Caringorn, Mount Kinross and the subpeaks of Pyramid Mountain, with Lac Beauvert in the foreground. This area was one of the first vistas Harris depicted during his initial 1924 trip to the region, and the artist and his family returned to stay at the Jasper Park Lodge on the Lac in July of 1929. In Mountain Sketch LXIII, Harris simplifies the mountain topography into sharp, white peaks with angular fissures, which tower over the dark land masses closer to the lake—the foliage reduced to just a row of trees along the right riverbank. The awe-inspiring, thickly outlined summits are then set against a brilliantly crisp blue sky filled with ethereal white cloud formations, underscoring the contrast between the geometric mountains and organic sky.
As exemplified by the present work, John Dorfman praises, “The northern landscapes are his most iconic works and have generally been considered to be his best or at least most characteristic. Without a doubt they are extremely powerful, visionary paintings that transport the viewer to a place beyond the bounds of normal human experience and perception. Harris’ north is a silent, forbidding, yet fascinating place that often more closely resembles a moonscape or a dreamscape than any place in waking life on this planet…The overall effect of these paintings is one of active power behind the stillness; the striations in the sky, land, and water could be electromagnetic lines of force.” (“Lawren Harris: Northern Exposure,” Art and Antiques) Indeed, Mountain Sketch LXII exudes the power and mystery of the geological wonders of the Rockies, elevating a Canadian landmark into a universal reflection on man’s place within the natural universe.
Born in Brantford, Ontario, Harris studied at St. Andrew’s College in Toronto and then in Berlin from 1904-08. When he returned to Toronto, he formed friendships with other Canadian artists looking to create works outside the conservative, realist framework of their national art. Beginning around 1911, the group, including Franklin Carmichael, A.Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and F.H. Varley, began to regularly meet at the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto to discuss each other’s work and share ideas about infusing feeling and mysticism within their paintings. In 1920, they had their first exhibition as the Group of Seven at the Art Gallery of Toronto and officially identified themselves as a new school of landscape painting. Their work was firmly supported by the National Gallery of Canada, and their influence continued to grow throughout the 1920s.
Beginning in 1919, Harris financed trips so that their circle of artists could travel together to seek inspiration within the Canadian landscape. Following sojourns in the Algoma Region and along Lake Superior’s North Shore, in 1924 Harris first ventured to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies on a sketching trip with A.Y. Jackson. This trip inspired Harris’ first mountain subjects, which became the hallmark of his oeuvre. Harris set out on annual sketching trips throughout the rest of the decade, exploring the mountain motif.
Painted circa 1929, the present work depicts Jasper Park’s Victoria Cross Range, including Caringorn, Mount Kinross and the subpeaks of Pyramid Mountain, with Lac Beauvert in the foreground. This area was one of the first vistas Harris depicted during his initial 1924 trip to the region, and the artist and his family returned to stay at the Jasper Park Lodge on the Lac in July of 1929. In Mountain Sketch LXIII, Harris simplifies the mountain topography into sharp, white peaks with angular fissures, which tower over the dark land masses closer to the lake—the foliage reduced to just a row of trees along the right riverbank. The awe-inspiring, thickly outlined summits are then set against a brilliantly crisp blue sky filled with ethereal white cloud formations, underscoring the contrast between the geometric mountains and organic sky.
As exemplified by the present work, John Dorfman praises, “The northern landscapes are his most iconic works and have generally been considered to be his best or at least most characteristic. Without a doubt they are extremely powerful, visionary paintings that transport the viewer to a place beyond the bounds of normal human experience and perception. Harris’ north is a silent, forbidding, yet fascinating place that often more closely resembles a moonscape or a dreamscape than any place in waking life on this planet…The overall effect of these paintings is one of active power behind the stillness; the striations in the sky, land, and water could be electromagnetic lines of force.” (“Lawren Harris: Northern Exposure,” Art and Antiques) Indeed, Mountain Sketch LXII exudes the power and mystery of the geological wonders of the Rockies, elevating a Canadian landmark into a universal reflection on man’s place within the natural universe.