Emily Carr, like her colleagues in the Group of Seven, retained a deep interest in working "en plein air" throughout her career. While most of her canvases were painted in her studio, the studies, on which these works were based, were always executed outdoors. The media Carr used for outdoor sketching changed throughout her career. She moved from using watercolour as her principal sketching medium to charcoal and later oil on paper. Most of Carr’s oil on paper sketches are undated, but during the 1930s she used this medium as her preferred sketching method. Carr chose to use sheets of manila paper as the support for her sketches and she employed oil paint, thinned with gasoline, as her principal sketching medium. The use of oil on paper had several advantages for Carr. The paper on which she painted was inexpensive and lightweight. The paper could be readily attached to a painting board which she could easily transport, along with her paints, out into the natural world. By thinning her oil paint with gasoline, she was able to create a medium that allowed her to work both directly and quickly. The thinned paint was fast drying, allowing for relatively easy transportation of her finished oil sketches. Finally, Carr was not a wealthy woman and the use of oil on paper enabled her to make sketches at relatively little cost, while the medium allowed for an intensity of visual expression that watercolour could not provide. In the early 1930s Carr used oil on paper as a sketching medium for canvases which she completed in her studio. She quickly recognized the appealing immediacy of the medium and realized that these expressive images could stand on their own as complete works of art. While there are many examples of oil on paper sketches that are preparatory studies for later canvases, most of Carr’s oil on paper compositions are complete artworks in their own right.
Southern Vancouver Island is a richly forested landscape. Areas around Victoria, where Carr lived, provided a tremendous variety of subjects. During this period Carr had a small house trailer which she called, "The Elephant". She would have "The Elephant" transported into the forested landscapes near Victoria and spend concentrated periods of time depicting the forest landscape. These sketching trips remained an essential part of Carr’s artistic life until the early 1940s.
"Fir Trees" is a vivid example of Carr’s direct approach to the forest landscape. A densely treed vista is seen beyond a small patch of soil in the immediate foreground. The overlapping forms of the trees suggest the density of the forest, but Carr has been careful to distinguish the forms of the individual trees. Subtle variations in colour and brushstroke give the trees distinct forms within the forest. The use of a line of light to define the form of the pine on the right gives the tree a sense of three-dimensional volume. What is likely a deciduous tree at the left has a flatter form, but Carr’s use of upward strokes suggests the life force of the tree itself. Indeed, the contrast in tree forms throughout the composition gives the forest both a rich and compelling variety and a strong sense of movement. This forest is vividly alive, and Carr has complimented that sense of motion in the swirling patterns of the sky above. The whole composition is enlivened by the visual force of Carr’s remarkably varied use of paint and form.
Carr’s oil on paper sketches are amongst her most important contributions to Canadian art. No other Canadian painter explored the idea of the sketch more intensely and brilliantly than Emily Carr.
We extend our thanks to curator and art historian, Ian Thom, for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.
