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CM . . .
. Volume X Number 6. . . . November 14, 2003
excerpt: Emily Carr was an extraordinarily gifted artist and she is all the more remarkable for being one of the very few women painters of her time. In the face of many challenges she pursued her own vision, basing her work on her great sense of curiosity and respect for the world surrounding her rather than on what was fashionable among artists of the period. This innovative cartoon biography chronicles the life of Emily Carr, one of Canada's most gifted artists, who captured the spirit of the vast forests and aboriginal life of the rugged North West coast in her paintings. Four Pictures by Emily Carr focuses on four paintings that express different period of Carr's life. The first, "Cedar House," explores her first forays to native settlements on Vancouver Island in 1899 and her desire to paint the vanishing way of life of the aboriginals who called her Klee Wyck, "the laughing one." The next chapter, entitled "Autumn in France," follows her to art school in Paris in 1910 and her encounters with the "new art" of Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne and others. The third painting, "Silhouette," finds her back in Victoria where she meets with little favourable attention for her work. She gives up painting almost completely until her meetings with members of the Group of Seven in 1927 when she is inspired to continue. Finally, "Beloved of the Sky," recounts her most creative period in which she unites a sense of spirituality with her art.
Debon bases his biography on The Complete Writings of Emily Carr as well as several other books about her life, including The Life of Emily Carr by Paula Blanchard, The Art of Emily Carr by Doris Shadbolt and Emily Carr: A Biography by Maria Tippett. This title is an excellent introduction for upper elementary students to the life of one of Canada's greatest women artists and would be a worthy companion to the recent Emily Carr: At the Edge of the World by Jo Ellen Bogart (Tundra, 2003). Four Pictures by Emily Carr joins a growing body of exemplary work in the graphic novel format including Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and Chester Brown's Louis Riel. Highly Recommended. Jane Bridle is a Youth Services Librarian at the Winnipeg Public Library. Four Pictures by Emily Carr was short-listed for the 2003 Governor General's Literary Award for English children's book illustration.
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Debon, who was influenced by childhood memories of Tintin, Asterix and Spirou, was also inspired by silent movies with their spare plots and narrative. He also credits other painters, including Rembrandt, Picasso and Lawren Harris. His illustrations, done in gouache and India Ink, make the character of Emily Carr come alive in a unique way. The medium is a perfect vehicle to express the luminescent mystical quality of Carr's work as well as to describe her unconventional life. The endpapers are Carr's own pencil sketches of Indian artifacts.