The Forest Lover

The DMA has a show I just heard about called "The Lens of Impressionism" that I am really excited about going to see. According to the web site it is, "is an exploration of impressionist painting’s response to early photography within the context of a single geographic locale that was intensely explored by painters and photographers in the second half of the 19th century—the coast of Normandy."

A couple of months a go I read a book called, "The Forest Lover" by Susan Vreeland. Many of her books take you on journeys that stem around paintings or styles of paintings that I love. In "The Forest Lover" she follows Emily Carr, a Canadian Painter at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, who specialized in impressionistic paintings of the totem poles of Northwest American Indians. In her quest to learn how to express her impressions of the totem poles Emily went to Normandy to learn to paint with impressionists there.

All that to say, the book is fictional, but having read it makes me feel like I am taking some interesting background knowledge with me to the exhibit. Emily and her accomplishments are/were real and there is even an Art University named after her in Canada.