I wonder if, when Emily Carr went as a young woman to study painting in Paris in 1910, she might have read the sonnet, Vers dorés, by Gérard de Nerval that ends:
Souvent dans l’être obscur habite un Dieu caché; Et, comme un oeil naissant couvert par ses paupières, Un pur esprit s’accroît sous l’écorce des pierres!
God is often hidden in obscure things; And like a newborn eye covered by its lids, Inside each stone a pure spirit lives!
Because when Emily Carr returned to Canada, she painted in such a visceral way that nature is there breathing and aware in her canvases; her work lives.
I am reminded of another favorite American painter of mine, Charles Burchfield, who was a contemporary of Carr and did the exact same thing. Did they know each other’s work? I’m sure they liked it if they did.
The Little Pine, 1931
Sea Drift on the Edge of the Forest, 1931
A Young Tree, 1931
Forest, British Columbia, 1931-32
Untitled, 1931-32
Spiraling Upward, 1932-33
Wood Interior, 1932-35
Untitled, 1933-34
Forest Edge and Sky, 1934
A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth, 1935
Young Pines and Sky, 1935
Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky, 1935