Tom Thomson's "Landscape with Snow" - Autumn 1916

There is an interesting story behind this painting that Tom never named... and there is still much to learn.

Tom Tomson - Painted on both sides of a sketch box panel,
"Rising Mist – Heavy Skies" Oil on wood panel (beveled edge) in middle above; 
"Landscape with Snow, Fall 1916", verso  Alternate titles: "Spring Landscape with Snow" to the right above;
10 1/2 x 8 1/2 in (Thomson's Sketch Box size); catalogue raisonne 1916.162

Artists can only improve by pushing paint around - trying to learn and get better.  Practice can indeed make perfect. Artists do not normally have unlimited resources so sometimes you use both sides of a panel. That is exactly what Tom Thomson did in 1916 nearing the height of his artistic creativity. 

In "Tom Thomson's Islands Canoe Lake, 1916", we established that Tom was at Basin Depot on Wednesday, October 4th, 1916 to mail a letter to his patron Dr. James MacCallum. Tom had hoped to be laid off from his fire ranger job at Achray on Grand Lake very soon and wanted some company when painting the Algonquin autumn colours at their peak. It is likely Tom observed "Rising Mist - Heavy Skies" between October 4th, 1916 and early November when he returned to Toronto. The outbreak of cold air required to generate the Arctic sea fog might have even been in the wake of the autumn storm foretold in "Islands Canoe Lake, 1916". 

 Later in October of 1916, the snow was falling and Tom needed a panel to paint on so he recorded “(Spring) Landscape with Snow” on the flip side of  "Rising Mist - Heavy Skies". Tom neither signed nor named either of these sketches and there was no "verso" for the conjoined paintings on which to scribble any information. The titles even changed with time as various experts weighed in on the unknown.

To briefly recap "Tom Thomson's “Rising Mist - Heavy Skies” Autumn 1916", I described Tom's weather observation of Arctic Sea Smoke. Sea smoke occurs in the wake of a low-pressure area when cold Arctic air is drawn southward over the still-warm waters found in more southern climes. The front-lit rising convective vortices require only 5 degrees Celsius of temperature difference between the water and the air. The air temperature over the water is coldest at sunrise under clear skies after a night of cooling and draining of the chilled air down the river valleys to the lake surface.  The convective billows become more vigorous as the temperature difference increases and stratus clouds often shroud the landscape when the moisture from the lake reaches the cap of the radiational inversion accompanying the night of strong cooling.  The following animation from the COMET program is for "dust devils" but the convective heating from below process is identical for "steam devils". Animation is often the key that unlocks the door to understanding. Seeing can be believing. 

With this explained, the opportunity has arrived to address the flip side of the artistic panel and “(Spring) Landscape with Snow”. 

"Landscape with Snow,  Fall 1916"
Alternate titles: "Spring Landscape with Snow"
10 1/2 x 8 1/2 in (Thomson's Sketch Box size)
(catalogue raisonne 1916.162)

Without some clue on the panel, the date of the work is always a guessing game as indicated by the conflicting seasons in the proposed titles. Indeed, which side of the panel was painted on first? No one can really know for certain. Oils can take anywhere between a day to a few weeks to dry enough to handle without wearing the oils. There would probably be a delay of a couple of weeks between painting the second side. Given the typical evolution of the weather, one might guess that the "snow" arrived after the cold outbreak of the Arctic sea smoke of “Rising Mist - Heavy Skies” Autumn 1916" making "Landscape with Snow" the second effort.  

Thankfully there is much less guesswork when it comes to the meteorology of the painting. 

• The landscape with a high horizon is calm. 
• The lake surface could be ice-covered or perhaps there is still some open water with no wave action. 
• Frontlit patches of stable altostratus (the cloud is more opaque than cirrostratus) could be associated with a warm conveyor belt or perhaps just an open wave in the atmospheric frame of reference (see "Empathetic Meteorology" for an explanation of open-wave troughs in the atmospheric frame of reference), 
• Cloud colours suggest timing is either just after sunrise or before sunset,
• The viewing angle depends upon the timing of the painting ... northwest (early morning) or northeast (late afternoon),
• The cold conveyor belt (if it is a conveyor belt system) could be negated by the speed of the system approach - the calm before the storm as described in "Weather Lessons for Everyone from the Cold Conveyor Belt Wizard".
• There is still a lot of guesswork here but it is best to admit the many possibilities.

The most plausible story is that of a warm conveyor belt with a low-pressure area approaching but the cloud could also be simply just an open-wave causing ascent. Not every painting needs to be a dramatic storm!

My Thomson friend comments: 

"I still can't help but feel the scene is spring rather than fall, with the ice half off the lake and a late fall of rather wet snow.  It's probably mostly due to the sky colour - that beautiful turquoise says mild spring day to me rather than chilly autumn.  But that's just a feeling - no scientific analysis involved."

My Thomson friend could very well be correct thus favouring the alternate title "Spring Landscape with Snow" over the conflicting "Landscape with Snow,  Fall 1916".  The implication would be that "Spring Landscape with Snow" would have been painted on the panel first early in 1916 before Tom signed on as a fire ranger at Achray. Both options work and we will never know. 

As mentioned previously with this work, Joan Murray deemed the panel "a clumsy forgery" painted in the 1950s despite A.J. Casson vouching for its authenticity. Blair Laing, Toronto's prominent dealer of art to the Canadian Establishment agreed with Ms. Murray but did not reveal any reasons for his own disavowal. "There's nobody special whose opinion on Thomson I'd value more than my own." Now you might understand why I just deal with the science and facts. 

This panel was the first Thomson to undergo a detailed physical and chemical analysis in late 1989 using the full arsenal of science. The Canadian Conservation Institute concluded the panel was almost certainly a Thomson. 

Were these conjoined paintings ever split apart? Neither my Thomson friend or myself could find any evidence that this panel was ever split, so presumably both sides ("Rising Mist – Heavy Skies" and  "Landscape with Snow, Fall 1916" are still together in a private collection. Another double-sided panel from 1915 was indeed split apart in 2006. The divided panel provided "Smoke Lake" which hangs at McMichael, and "Northern Lights" which can be found at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).  

 William Cruikshank,
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts 1894
(1848/9 – 1922)

Upon Tom's death in 1917, this panel became the property of Tom's eldest sister, Elizabeth Thomson Harkness of Annan and later Owen Sound. The panel was soon purchased by Mrs. John Lewis Severn Scadding who was advised by her art teacher William Cruikshank, to buy a work by Thomson.  In 1906 or 1907, Tom Thomson reportedly took private lessons from Cruikshank at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Cruikshank would have been Thomson's only art instructor. Otherwise, Tom was self-taught while painting with his artist friends and future founders of the Group of Seven. The investigation of the validity of these interactions makes for an interesting read but that is another story. 

Mrs. John Lewis Severn Scadding moved from Toronto to Lowell, Massachusetts. The painting was transferred by descent to Margaret S. (Peggy) Thompson (née Scadding) and Barbara Scadding and then on to David Mitchell of Toronto all by descent.  In 1989 the painting eventually left the family for the Beckett Gallery in Hamilton, Ontario, and then to the 6-10 June sale in 1989 at Waddington's Toronto when lot 1163 was sold to a private collection. The painting changed hands again on 26 May 2010 in the Vancouver Heffel Auction and lot 176 was sold to another private collection. Sadly, much more is known about the travels of the panel than its creation. 

The portrait composition would only slide sideways into Tom's plein air paint box. Placing the painting in the box would only really be vital for transporting the finished work. Several artists including my friend Lawrence Nickle of Burk's Falls (1931-2014), simply hold the panel while painting. Oils would find their way to Lawrence's hands, the truck doors and many other places. Lawrence's white truck was his mobile studio. (see "Lawrence Nickle - A Painter of Canada!") A close examination of Tom's work would likely reveal some fingerprints as well. 

The catalogue raisonné really needs to be a living document incorporating new facts as they are discovered and correlating them all in time and space. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date.