Growing Pains by Emily Carr

Author:Emily Carr [Carr, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: _NB_fixed, _rt_yes, Art, Artists, Biography & Autobiography, Canadian, History, tpl
Publisher: D & M Publishers
Published: 2005-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

THE RADCLIFFES’ ART AND DISTRICT VISITING

THE WESTMINSTER ART SCHOOL students did not discuss Art in general very much. They soberly drudged at the foundations, grounding themselves, working like ditch-diggers, straightening, widening, deepening the channel through which something was to flow—none were quite sure what as yet.

I never wrote home about my work nor did my people ask me about it. A student said to me once, “Are any of your people artists?”

“No.”

“Take my advice, then—don’t send any of your nude studies home.”

“Goodness gracious, I would never dream of doing so! Why, they’d have me prayed for in church. My family are very conservative, they suppose I only draw clothes. If my drawings intimated that there was flesh and blood under the clothes they’d think I’d gone bad!”

The other girl said, “My people wrote begging me, ‘Send us home some of your studies to see.’ I did. They wrote again, ‘Oh, please do not send us any more; we wanted to be able to show your work to our friends—well, the only place we could hang them was in the bathroom.’ ”

MRS. RADCLIFFE AND FRED were Art-lovers but they only liked or tolerated Old Masters or later work of the most conservative type. They knew every continental gallery by heart, had volumes of photos of the masterpieces of the world. The modern school of painting was as indecent to them as my nude studies would have been to the home folks. The Radcliffes had arty cousins, studying in Paris and in Rome. They talked about the Art exploits of these cousins till I was sick of them. Perhaps a little of my disgust came from jealousy, for I was beginning to feel that Paris and Rome were probably greater centres for Art than London. The Art trend in London was mainly very conservative. I sort of wished I had chosen to study in Paris rather than in London. What had decided me was the difficulty my tongue had always experienced in crawling round foreign words; even the difference in English and Scotch words from those we used in Canada was perplexing at times. The students ridiculed what they called my colonialisms.

Fred asked, “Klee Wyck, do you go often to the National Gallery?”

“I did at first, but not now. It is a dreary place. Besides, one wet day, when the rooms were dark and empty, I was alone in a big gallery. One of the guards came into the room and said something horrid to me. I have never been back to the National Gallery since.”

“The man should have been reported,” said Fred angrily. “Come with Mother and me next Saturday.”

I went. Mrs. Radcliffe and I stood, one on either side of Fred. Fred told us what pictures to look at, the date of each picture’s painting. Fred knew every date of every happening in the world. He knew why the artist painted the picture and how. The older they were and the more cracked and faded, the better he loved them. He loved the Old Masters like blood brothers.

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