1st Edition
Artist Emily Carr and the Spirit of the Land A Jungian Portrait
Emily Carr, often called Canada’s Van Gogh, was a post-impressionist explorer, artist and writer. In Artist Emily Carr and the Spirit of the Land Phyllis Marie Jensen draws on analytical psychology and the theories of feminism and social constructionism for insights into Carr’s life in the late Victorian period and early twentieth century.
Presented in two parts, the book introduces Carr’s émigré English family and childhood on the "edge of nowhere" and her art education in San Francisco, London and Paris. Travels in the wilderness introduced her to the totem art of the Pacific Northwest coast at a time Aboriginal art was undervalued and believed to be disappearing. Carr vowed to document it before turning to spirited landscapes of forest, sea and sky. The second part of the book presents a Jungian portrait of Carr, including typology, psychological complexes, and archetypal features of personality. An examination the individuation process and Carr’s embracement of transcendental philosophy reveals the richness of her personality and artistic genius.
Artist Emily Carr and the Spirit of the Land provides captivating reading for analytical psychologists, academics and students of Jungian studies, art history, health, gender and women’s studies.
Part 1 Life Story. A New Biographic Paradigm. Parents. Childhood & Youth. Siblings. Young Adult (19-33). Middle Years (33-54). Mature Years (54-63). Final Years (64-74). Part 2 Psychodynamics: Typology. Archetypes & Complexes. Gender Complex. Family Complexes. Migration & Cultural Complexes. Art, Religion and Philosophy. Archetypal Figures of Personality and Individuation. Bibliography. Index.
Biography
Phyllis Marie Jensen, a Zurich-trained Jungian analyst, art therapist and health researcher, is currently an associate clinical professor in family medicine at the University of Alberta with a private psychoanalytic practice in Vancouver, Canada.
‘It was C.G. Jung’s view that artists’ works may symbolize the vanguard of consciousness as it will emerge more concretely in the future of human culture’s evolution. In this impressive study of the life and work of the Canadian artist Emily Carr, Jungian analyst Dr. Phyllis Marie Jensen demonstrates exactly this thesis: the artist as forerunner of what we today see resplendently active in many forms all around us, the emerging sense of anima mundi in nature and human constructions, and additionally a poignant and sharp critique of humanity’s shadow cast over the planetary environment. This book is an important contribution to our awareness of the supreme value of artistic creativity.’ - Murray Stein, Ph.D., author of Minding the Self (Routledge, 2014).
