Estate of Arnold O. Brigden, Winnipeg
Gift to the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1973
Exhibited
"The Brigden Collection", Winnipeg Art Gallery, 29 May-13 October 1974
"Development of Canadian Art: 1900-1965", Winnipeg Art Gallery, 18 January-23 March 1975
"Group of Seven: Works on Paper", Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1-15 October 1976
"The Canadian Landscape", Winnipeg Art Gallery, 12 December 1980-7 June 1981
"Franklin Carmichael: Watercolours", Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 3 September-30 October 1981
"Stone and Sky: Canada’s Mountain Landscape", Audain Art Museum, Whistler, B.C., 10 November 2017-26 February 2018
After initially focusing on oil painting during the early years of the Group of Seven, Franklin Carmichael returned to watercolour in 1924. Between 1926 and the mid-1930s, he created some of his most significant watercolours. In a talk during the 1930s, Carmichael expressed his deep enthusiasm for this medium, the artists who influenced his appreciation for watercolour, and his confusion regarding the early twentieth-century belief that the Canadian landscape was unsuitable for watercolour painting. As a versatile medium, Carmichael liked that watercolour could adapt to even the most subtle shifts in tone or emotion and that it possessed the ability to be clear and precise, yet also delicate and impactful, capturing all the nuances that exist in-between. In 1925, Carmichael, A.J. Casson and Frederick Brigden founded the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, furthering the manifestation of Carmichael’s desire to install watercolour in its rightful place of importance.
"Mountainscape" is depicted from a high vantage point, showcasing many of the hallmarks of the artist’s iconic rendering of the landscape in watercolour. Jack pines and the dramatic rolling mountains leading into the distance were distinctive features of Carmichael’s watercolours. Mauve and green tones create an ethereal and calm scene. The soft lavender hues of the rolling hills in the background provide a seamless backdrop to the more tactile green pines in the foreground. This harmonious colour palette evokes a sense of tranquility and serenity.
