It was like a revelation: in those artists, the vigor of the landscapes had incorporated the decorative manner of Art Nouveau. In 1913, Harris traveled to Buffalo to visit an exhibition of Scandinavian artists. Gradually, the painters began to work together, touring Canada to study and paint landscapes. Canadian artists were searching for an authentic way to express their experience of their land. In 1908, Harris became part of the Toronto Arts and Letters Club. Harris balanced his interest in city scenes with that of Canadian wilderness and landscapes, often painting in Canadian forests. Although the painting may seem a simple everyday city scene, we can see in it the seeds of what will be the great interest of Harris: nature, captured in the curved line of the trees and the snow on the branches simplified in spots of color. Urban scenes that he learned to look at in Berlin were the first subject of his art: his first major oil painting was, in fact, Wellington Street (1910).
His training was academic, focusing on the problem of composition, light, construction of volumes, perspective, as his first sketches of the Berlin streets shown.
At 19, in 1904, he went to Berlin where he privately studied art for three years. His artistic talent was noticed and encouraged by his parents. Since Harris was a child, he showed an interest in drawing. His family was strongly religious, so he inherited a commitment to spiritual truth.
Harris was born in a family recently made wealthy through the invention and production of farm machinery: this circumstance created lifelong material security for the artist. Lawren Harris was a Canadian landscape painter, member and financier of the Canadian art movement called the Group of Seven.
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