clip & save - Brief Article

Arts & Activities, Dec, 2000 by Guy Hubbard

Nearly 100 years ago, when Emily Carr first visited North American Indian villages along the coast of British Columbia, many of them were still occupied. During an early visit, the people in one of the villages gave her the name of "Klee Wyck" (Laughing One), which became the title of the first of her five books. European diseases continued to kill the North American Indians, however, and almost all of their villages were eventually abandoned, and survivors moved to the towns and villages of the white settlers.

Emily Carr's 'Vanquished" reflects the collapse of this North American Indian civilization, with its totem poles and traditional houses, while at the same time telling the viewer about the warm rainy climate and the lush plant life that grew along the northwest coast of Canada. In this picture, Nature is rapidly recapturing the land that had formerly been a village. All that remains are scattered posts, leaning in all directions, that may have been parts of houses or may have been totem poles. Close by in the foreground lies a jumble of roots, trees and branches that have drifted in from the sea and now clog the beach.

The tragedy of the abandoned village is an important part of the message in this painting. Perhaps more powerful is Carr's understanding and portrayal of the power of Nature. The landscape and wet climate dominate everything from the massiveness of the nearby hills and mountains to the never-ending, heavily loaded rain clouds that constantly blow across the area. The warm rain makes everything green and encourages the rapid growth of trees and smaller plants. At the same time, everything that has died rots and vanishes quickly under a covering of young, fastgrowing plants--which are overtaking this abandoned village where everything was made of wood.

Students may be interested to learn that the inspiration for this painting appears in a combination of sketches, watercolor paintings and photographs taken during one of Cart's trips many years earlier. She took photographs of the ruins of the village of Skedans in the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1913, long before her artistic style had fully developed. She also visited the same village again just before she painted this picture. By the time this picture was painted, Carr's ability to speak through her art had advanced so much that she was able create a powerful, sad picture that depicts the decay of a civilization, with the ghostly presence of old carvings standing silently, waiting to fall down.

By this time she was no longer trying to use artistic ideas from France, other parts of Canada or the United States, where she had studied. From the time she was a young woman, Carr had been determined to find her own way of portraying the densely forested, mountainous west coast of Canada with its rainswept climate. Although it had taken 40 years to achieve this, she had learned what she needed from seeing the work of artists who, like herself, had been struggling to invent new ways of expressing themselves. Not until she was about 60 did she finally achieve her goal, and her greatest work was produced during the next 10 years. 'Vanquished" was painted at the beginning of this final, great period.

Emily Carr's extraordinary convictions and willpower enabled her to develop a level of greatness that has only been surpassed by a handful of artists. As a result of her deeply religious feeling for the Pacific Coast of Canada, she discovered how to portray its power and beauty in ways that were entirely her own. She went far beyond realism, yet her pictures are quite understandable to many different kinds of viewers.--G.H.