Josephine Mackay 100 Views of Mount Royal

100 Views of Mount Royal is a poetic depiction of Montreal’s Mount Royal through the seasons of the year. The title of the work is an allusion to Views of Mount Fuji, the famous series of prints by renowned nineteenth century Japanese artist Hokusai. I wished to evoke the elegance and simplicity of the Japanese aesthetic in visual arts and, most particularly, in poetry, in the form of the sparse and poignant haiku. I believe that this form is not limited to a particular culture, nor to a particular medium, but in fact is a universal aesthetic sense that attempts to capture the essential truth and beauty of life in the most direct and elegant way possible. It is a communion with the object, for both the artist and the reader/viewer, taking us beyond our limited preoccupations into direct relationship with the essence of nature, life and being. My intention in this piece was to convey this aesthetic and philosophical approach through the medium of video, in depicting the magical microcosmic world of the mountain. [J.M.]