Tom Thomson's Clouds from All Sides

The application of CSI (Creative Scene Investigation) to “Clouds (The Zeppelins)” was probably the most challenging and rewarding of all of the Thomson works that I studied. MacCallum and/or Harris must have been pushed to the brink just to put a title on this rather bizarre composition and subject matter. 

Clouds ("The Zeppelins") 1915 
Oil on wood 8 3/8 x 10 7/16 inches
Thomson's Paint Box Size 
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4694)

The official catalogue entry for National Gallery of Canada Accession number 4694 indicates "Clouds" as the first name. Dr. MacCallum bequeathed the painting to the National Gallery in 1944. Alternate titles for this work apparently include "Clouds (The Zeppelins)"; "Clouds: The Zeppelins"; and "Zeppelin, Algonquin Park Fall 1915". Tom might have saved some confusion if he had simply stated why he painted this night sky observation. Tom didn’t even bother to put his name on the panel bearing his observation of some pretty unusual cloud formations and interesting meteorology. The Paint Box sized panel bears the scars of sliding into Tom's plein air kit signifying that Tom recorded something he really observed. Tom only painted what he saw.

During the “Great War” from 1914 to 1918, there was a very tangible fear of a German airship raid over Algonquin Park. Imagine the potential damage to the Algonquin forest, railway transportation system, and Canadian morale had such an attack materialized! A Zeppelin raid had occurred about a month after the painting was created. On the night of 31st May 1915, seven people were killed and 35 others were injured during the first-ever bombing raid over London. It was terrifying. This followed the first-ever bombing raid on the night of 19th January 1915 when the German Zeppelin L3 attacked and bombed Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast of Britain. Zeppelins certainly made the news in 1915. In total 51 Zeppelin air raids took place in WWI and 5,806 bombs were dropped causing terror within the civilian population.

The strange clouds in Tom's painting bore some resemblance to the much-feared zeppelin. The timing of the London Zeppelin Raid and the first viewing of the painting by Tom’s patrons would have been in very close temporal proximity. 

The Clouds over Algonquin Park do indeed resemble a Zeppelin

I think it best to simply state the conclusion of this Creative Scene Investigation (CSI) before divulging how we know all of the following. "Clouds (The Zeppelins)" will occupy three posts to fully describe what Tom observed and why he painted this unusual sky. 

Tom was looking south to southwest in the early hours of a spring evening.  The cloud pattern painted is an excellent example of Conditional Symmetric Instability (also coincidentally abbreviated as CSI) which is by far most common in the spring of the year. A Tom Thomson letter dated April 22, 1915, indicates he had only been in Algonquin a few days and that the “snow was 2-3 ft deep in the bush”. Given the celestial constraints, April 25 through April 29, 1915, would have been the prime window for Tom to witness such an event. It is extremely unlikely that "Clouds (The Zeppelins)" is a fall painting as suggested in the official catalogue. 

Tom was observing a warm frontal zone to the south complete with wind shear and obvious slantwise convection. The baroclinic zone cirrus stretching across the background of the upper portion of the panel, reveals the orientation of the frontal zone. The air mass was quite unstable. The stronger winds in the warm air above the frontal surface had a southerly component while the cold air beneath the frontal surface was marked by a northeasterly component. These wind patterns are consistent with the conveyor belt conceptual model in which a southerly flow of warm and moist air rises over a colder and drier air mass flooding in from the northeast. The southerly warm flow is called the “warm conveyor belt”. The northeasterly low-level cold flow is appropriately the “cold conveyor belt”. Knowledge of this conceptual model allows one to decipher the seemingly complex patterns in a meteorological minute. 

There is much more that Tom hid in his brush strokes but that is enough for now.  

Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman 
PowerPoint Slide from the 1990s

What an unusual artistic subject matter to paint! The composition reveals the painting as a pure skyscape with a very low horizon. The compositional elements are artistically very odd but ones that would entice and excite any weatherman. This painting requires special meteorological interpretation and knowledge. The important features are labelled on the interpretation that I painted based on Tom’s “Zeppelins”. Recall when I initially investigated this painting in the 1990s, I could not use any of Tom's art in my proposed book without paying a large up-front fee. The probability of going very much into debt on this scholarly project was high so I painted stylized versions instead. 

If it looks complicated, it is! The PowerPoint presentation identified each feature as they were being discussed. Symbols, words and even a jet were whizzing across a multi-layered version of my painting complete with sound effects. I put the jet in reverse and backed it out of the PowerPoint to the roar of a plane because that linear cirrus cloud could not possibly have been a contrail in 1915. The PowerPoint presentation was fun and quite interactive. 

The Creative Scene Investigation solution is summarized above but the journey to get to that point was not simple or easy. When we are done with “Clouds (The Zeppelins)”, you will have seen clouds from all sides and will hopefully marvel at the scientific accuracy of Tom Thomson's art. Tom Thomson was certainly a weatherman. 

Tom certainly had something to say with his brush and his patron Dr. MacCallum was listening even if he might not understand the science.  Dr. MacCallum probably prized this painting above most others before giving it to the Canadian people and the National Art Gallery upon his death. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick

PS: For the Blog Version of my Tom Thomson catalogue raisonné, Google Search Naturally Curious "Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now" or follow this link “http://philtheforecaster.blogspot.com/2022/10/tom-thomson-was-weatherman-summary-as.html”