Book Review |
Posted January 2005 |
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Water: Lauren Harris and the Group of Seven
By Joan Murray, McArthur & Company, Toronto, 2004, 136pp. $29.95
This is a most Canadian book. Rivers and the Group of Seven – you just can ’t get more Canadian than that.
Rivers have influenced the development of our country, leading the early explorers coast to coast to coast, defining our geography and history, and our sense of identity as a people and a nation. Rivers also have markedly influenced Canadian art and literature.
This book looks at the passion of the Group of Seven for painting the “flowing world”. Come along for the adventure. Follow the rivers of the boreal forest of northern Ontario to the western mountains and up north to the frozen Arctic as they take these artists on a voyage of discovery...not of new lands, but of new ways to portray the power and beauty of this land of rivers. The book is lavishly illustrated with colour prints, the products of countless hours travelling on the rivers of Canada. The paintings take us beyond geography, into the soul of this land we call Canada, and the artists ’ love for it.
Thank you, Joan Murray, for compiling and interpreting this collection of art. The book makes one want to re-trace the routes of these painters, to try to re-discover the wonder and joy that they portray so eloquently in their paintings, and to see if it is still there. I would be afraid to take the trip, for if the beauty and wildness that spawned these paintings has slipped away, then we would know that the very fabric and nature of this land will have been lost forever to us – except in the works portrayed in this book.
