Thomson over the winter. Carmichael and the members of the group were frustrated by their initial attempts to capture the untouched "savage" land of Canada, with the particular characteristics of the land difficult to represent in the European tradition. Jackson would write that, "after painting in Europe where everything was mellowed by time and human associations, I found it a problem to paint a country in outward appearance pretty much as it had been when Champlain passed through its thousands of rock islands three hundred years before." It would be only after the group discovered the paintings of Scandinavian landscapes that they would begin to move in a coherent direction. According to MacDonald, the Scandinavian painters "seemed to be a lot of men not trying to express themselves so much as trying to express something that took hold of themselves. The painters began with nature rather than with art." Thomson invited Carmichael on a sketching trip to Algonquin Park in the fall of 1915. Carmichael could not go because of his September 15 marriage to Ada Lillian Went. Group of Seven (1920–1932) In April 1920, the Group of Seven was established by Jackson, Harris, MacDonald, Lismer, Varley, Johnston and Carmichael. The group held its first exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto from May 7 to 27, 1920. In 1922, Carmichael joined the Sampson-Matthews firm, a printmaking business. He likely worked as head designer under the art directorship of J.E. Sampson. In 1925, Carmichael, Harris and Jackson ventured to the northern shore of Lake Superior. On the trip, Carmichael opted to use watercolour rather than his usual oil paints. He used watercolour consistently from this point onward, painting some of his most famous works with the medium. After this initial experience, he would return several more times to the lake, including in 1926 and 1928. This area on Lake Superior as well as the Northern shore of Lake Huron in the La Cloche mountains would be consistent themes in his work. According to writer Peter Mellen, the considerably young Carmichael and A. J. Casson "always remained slightly on the fringes of the Group" due to the age gap between them and the other members. Together with F. H. Brigden, Carmichael and Casson founded the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (in French: La Société Canadienne de Peintres en Aquarelle), in 1925 Theosophy and spiritual influences The entire