Miners’ Houses, Grace Bay
Art has been an irreplaceable part of humans’ life for as long as mankind has existed. People have built very close connection with art for a while. They have been creating, looking at, criticizing and admiring art all their life. The first and foremost purpose of any artist is not just to capture the eye of the audience, but attempt to communicate an emotion, an idea or some important social theme. Art is something that inspires human beings, something that is able to move them into various fascinating realities as well as into the unexperienced subconscious places, no one even supposed existed.
Lawren Harris in his popular painting Miners’ Houses, managed to paint views of gloomy houses and convey the special atmosphere of that time, where each house possessed its face, character and mirrored the miserable existence it had to conceal.
Lawren Stewart Harris was a famous Canadian painter born in Brantford, Ontario. He was one of the well-known landscape painters who formed the Group of Seven. Established in 1920, this group of artists aimed to create a distinctly Canadian art. Harris proved to be a prominent nationalist and enthusiast in the group, who provided inspiration for others and initiated a clearly Canadian painting style at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Art for Harris was not just a means of making a living and supporting life, but life itself. The painter believed that art was a kingdom of life between humans’ secular world and the realm of the spirit (Adamson & Harris 118). He even refused to sign and date his works to give people a chance to judge his works on their own merit, not taking into consideration the status of the artist or time when paintings were created.
One of the most favorite themes for Harris was the depiction of the urban landscapes. After his breakdown, numerous houses of the poor excited the curiosity of the artist even more. On the one hand, such urban landscapes served as rendering of his own experience of suffering and pain. On the other hand, those paintings were the skillful embodiment of Harris’s standpoint of human life on the lower level of existence.
Miners’ Houses is a good example of that series of later urban paintings. It was grounded on Harris’s journey to eastern Canada in 1921. The artist’s life in that time resembled the constant struggle with gloom and fits of depression. The main cause of that state was the death of Harris’s brother in the First World War.
The cruel war had taken away a lot of precious hearts and had cast a dark shadow over the nation’s generally competitive spirit. It is difficult to count how many homes were left over without loving husbands, sons, fathers or uncles. The losses were considerably felt in every small town of the country. Truly touched by such situation, Harris was inspired to convey all his emotions on the paper.
Throughout Cape Breton there existed several small coal mining companies by the end of 1800. Most of coal mining communities such as Nova Scotia’s Glace Bay at that time suffered detrimental poverty and could not easily operate, especially during the cold winters. Most of mines stayed under dilapidated state without any possibilities or money to be modernized or start running properly. In spite of such devastating conditions, Glace Bay had to supply raw materials to big cities like Toronto and fuel their economic prosperity.
The time passed by, but the situation in Cape Breton did not become any better. On the contrary, the difficult conditions for miner grew even worse every new day. Miners’ debts started to rise, their families grew hungry and there was not even the smallest hope for any improvement. As a result, anxiety and disturbance penetrated throughout the town. Thousands of discontented workers began to gather together and decided to fight for their rights.
There is a limit for all people’s suffering and it finally came to Cape Breton too. The miners were not going to endure wage cuts and cutbacks in coal and steel production all their entire life. Ultimately they summoned up their strength, plucked up their spirits and called a strike against the Dominion Coal and Steel Company.
The miners could not put up with such miserable existence anymore and were determined to become the architects of their own happiness and fortune. They demanded higher wages, payment in cash rather than credit, an eight-hour day, and sufficient health and safety regulations in the mines and were not afraid to fight for the fulfillment of these claims till the very end (O'Brian 221).
Miners’ Houses consequently was not just a depiction of houses of the coal miners of a very poor part of eastern Canada. It could deservedly be named one of the strongest and most reminiscent paintings of the industrial life in the middle of the twenties century.
Influenced by the contemporary political ideas about nature, Harris succeeded in creating the masterpiece that has a tremendous effect on its audience even now. Miners’ Houses raised the issue of the artist’s social consciousness and merited the status of one of the most conservative works ever.
The first and foremost purpose of Harris was to pay attention of the authority to the urgent needs and existing problems of the working class. Twice more significant than difficult economic conditions was of course the psychological condition that weighed on the town. In order to emphasize the importance of some radical actions and intensify the wretched state of poverty even more, the artist slightly distorted the buildings.
The picture imitated Outskirts of Toronto in the type of architecture and in the use of such distinct deformations of the buildings. The houses in the middle raw are deliberately lopsided towars the centre of the paintings while the houses on the right and left at their turn slope outwards (Larisey 74).
The main difference between Miners' Houses and Elevator Court, Halifax, for example, were exactly these distortions. Moreover, the picture is known to be the most artificial of all Harris's house pictures and looks like a part of some German Expressionist film rather than any true scene (Adamson & Harris 163).
This work is exclusively imagenery composition and does not, for example, contain any of the elevated feelings Halifax pictures aimed to express. The only visible similiarities that could be found here are actually the feigned lighting and the hyperbolical three-dimensional effects (Adamson & Harris 167).
Harris was deeply disturbed by the poverty he observed in Glace Bay in 1921 and since his breakdown this feeling of sympathy increased even more. The artist considered the economic conditions of the town to be the lowest state of poverty ever existed.
Till now Harris was hundred percents sure that “mire-bowed heads” were able to come to light again and any urban poverty would not be a problem at all (Simpson-Housley & Norcliffe 76). However, in Glace Bay the painter witnessed the real tragedy of people who were entangled in some economic mazes that kept them in devastating poverty. As a result, the intensity of that tragedy lately became the principal reason of all the distortions of his painting.
Miners of Glace Bay turned for Harris a symbol of that part of the world that was deprived of a sun light, as well as any chances for happiness or at least the smallest economic improvement. Though there is not any human being depicted on the picture, the effect of the painting is in fact rather convincing and strong.
The artist did not only strived to show social evils that covered the town and promote social changes in society. Using the image of poverty, Harris was inclined to start some moral or religious reform. After so terrible suffering, miners deserved to get some sunlight, not just a wider acceptance in society or repartition of wealth. (Larisey 76).
In conclusion, Harris by his painting Miners’ Houses made a statement about living conditions of the working class in Glace Bay after the First World War. Influenced by political ideas about nature, the artist managed to communicate the ordinary reality with its devastating poverty to the society as well. Thanks to the absence of people and vegetation from the landscape, the efficacy of that statement tended to be even more meaningful and expressive.
Works Cited
Adamson , Jeremy & Harris, Lawren. Lawren S. Harris: urban scenes and wilderness landscapes, 1906-1930: Art Gallery of Ontario, The University of California, 1978. Print.
Larisey, Peter. Light for a Cold Land: Lawren Harris's Life and Work, Dundurn, 1993. Print.
Lord, Barry. The history of painting in Canada: toward a people's art, NC Press, 1974. Print.
O'Brian, John. Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity, and Contemporary Art, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2007. Print.
Simpson-Housley, Paul & Norcliffe, Glen. A Few Acres of Snow: Literary and Artistic Images of Canada, Dundurn, 1992. Print.
