"L'élan" – Cabot Square, Saint Catherine Street at Atwater, Montréal, Québec

Cabot Square is an urban square in Montreal, between the former Montreal Forum and the Montreal Children's Hospital. The square is located in the Shaughnessy Village neighbourhood, an area which has been recently re-dubbed the Quartier des Grands Jardins and has been slated for redevelopment.

The square opened in 1870 and the monument to Italian-born English explorer John Cabot, by Italian sculptor Guido Casini (1892-1956), was unveiled on May 25, 1935. The square is unusual by Montréal standards in that it has multiple short fences and hedges employed to direct traffic and prevent too much through-traffic from ruining the grass, a design concept that hasn't entirely worked out. The square is well-used but generally by a population of homeless or otherwise impoverished people. It remains a popular destination for members of those groups wishing to drink alcohol outdoors. For this reason there is generally a visible police and public security presence in the area.

Of late, installation artwork and conceptual sculptures have been integrated into the square as part of a broad urban beautification plan. In late summer/early fall 2013, the city began a major cleanup of the square including: cleaning the statue of Cabot, pruning the trees and collecting debris.

Robert Lorrain (born in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec in 1940) is a Canadian painter and sculptor and a long-time devotee of Sri Aurobindo. He is largely a self-taught artist, describing technique as "only a necessity." "What truly marks high art," he says "is when you sense that beauty has been expressed through intensity of dedication." Reminiscing about the time he studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Montreal, he says, "There was only one teacher there whom I inwardly recognised as an artist, someone with a burning dedication which infused all his teaching." And passionately: "When you make a piece of art, you concentrate, you give the utmost of what you can. You ask a lot of yourself because you know that that is the only circumstance under which true beauty will manifest. It all depends on what the artist puts into the work." He believes that many artists don’t go deep enough and and avoid questioning themselves. "They should be asking themselves ‘Is this work really beautiful?’ There should be a burning need for continuous self-improvement. For only then does one get towards the spiritual aspect of art."

This sculpture is entitled "L'élan" which translates into English as "Life Force." The artist describes this sculpture: "This being is a vital gracious forceful and dynamic link, stretched between earth and sky, between clouds and roots. Its hair blends with the mist of sparking clouds, its belly connects with the nourishing soil, where the roots have a serpentine vitality."