Writer and Editor
Harris's first articles on church decoration appear in ecclesiastical publications in 1903. He wrote book reviews for the New York Times, compiled a published catalog of murals in the United States for the Fine Arts Federation and, and for over 11 years was contributing editor for Good Furniture magazine.
"For out of old fields, as men saithe, / Cometh al this new corn from yere to yere. / And out of old bookes, in good faithe, / Cometh al this new science that men lere. —Chaucer. "The idea thus quaintly expressed as a truism some five hundred years ago is equally true today; it is true not only of old fields and old books, but of our art. Thus it is quite necessary in beginning our article on Church Decoration to turn our thoughts backward to the art of days long past..." "The spirit of St. Francis is still operative; the struggle against the powers of evil is still going on. In art and in life it is the struggle between honesty and falsehood, between simplicity and ostentation, between true nobility and vulgarity. On the outcome of this struggle hangs the future of American Art." —William Laurel Harris, “St. Francis and his Influence on Church Decoration,” Christian Art, Aug. 1908, p. 203:
"It is by reading the histories of great men that we learn to appreciate the lessons they taught and comprehend the heroic purposes of their lives. The perspective of ages makes clear the exalted characters of artists long since departed. Unimportant facts and accidental details are soon eliminated or forgotten in a forceful expression of some great ideal. With men of our own time and country our opinion is confused and our judgment bewildered by a multiplicity of facts and a conflict of figures. Yet, it is by studying the actions of our contemporaries, and the lives of those men who have immediately preceded us, that we may most easily learn the varying and prodigious forces that have, in our own day, aided in the upbuilding of our American commonwealth. The lives of great artists are like shining objects floating on troubled water, indicating to us by the direction of their actions the tendency of mighty currents. Of no artist can this be said more truly than of the late John White Alexander, whose untimely death and impressive funeral were recorded in the July issue of Good Furniture." —William Laurel Harris, John White Alexander, His Influence on American Art and Industry, New York City, 1916.
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