Dr. Norman Bethune, artist

Self Portrait

Source: National Archives of Canada

Quote from the writings of Dr. Norman Bethune:

A great artist lets himself go. He is natural. He swims easily in the stream of his own temperment. He listens to himself, he respects himself. He has a deeper fund of strength to draw from than that arising from rational and logical knowledge. 

The function of the artist is to disturb. His duty is to arouse the sleeper to shake the complacent killers of the world. He reminds the world of its dark ancestry, shows the world its present and points the way to its new birth.  He is at once the product and the preceptor of his time....In a world terrified of change, he preaches revolution - the principle of life.  He is an agitator, a disturber of the peace, quick, impatient, positive, restless and disquieting.  He is the creative spirit of life working in the soul of men.

Some other notes on Dr. Bethune.

Bethune took lessons from Edwin Holgate and frequently associated with artists, John Lyman, Parskeva Clark, Frederick Taylor and Anne Savage. He was also the creator of the of the Montreal Children's Art Centre, in 1936. (in his own apartment in Beaver Hall Square).

Source:

quote from pp 82-83
Norman Bethune by
Adrienne Clarkson
Penquin Canada, Toronto. 2009.
ISBN  978-0-670-006731-2