Tom Thomson's "Lowery Dickson's Cabin" 1917

Artists were the first historians to scribe their marks on cave walls.  The oldest known cave painting was of a wild pig recorded at least 45,500 years ago in Indonesia. Art tells the story of their life and times. The tales would be lost and forgotten without those scratches. 

This is another motivation for these blogs to re-read the narrative as recorded by the artist. I also wish to include the wisdom of others who have their own interpretations that shed some light on what the artist might have been thinking.  Artists record their era and sometimes the historians that follow make mistakes that can only be revealed by re-examining those earlier records.  Such is the case with "Lowery Dickson's Cabin". 

Tom Thomson could have greatly assisted if only he had recorded some basic facts about his art. He even omitted to sign his sketches.  Tom did not even attempt to put a name to them. The lack of any information made the work of his friends, Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald that much more challenging when they met at the Studio Building in the spring of 1918 to organize, authenticate and name Thomson's art. 

Lowery Dickson's Cabin
Alternate titles: Artist's Hut; The Artist's Hut Spring 1917
Oil on wood 8 3/8 x 10 1/2 in. (21.3 x 26.6 cm) 
Tom's Paint Box Size

My friend, "Tom Thomson's Last Spring" locates this sketch and wrote poignantly and very plausibly about what might have occurred that April day in 1917. I repeat portions of that story here with permission from "Lawrie Dickson’s Shack":

"I was sketching from a knoll overlooking Potter Creek. The ice was pretty much out near the shore and around to Joe Lake Dam. There was still lots of ice in Canoe Lake (it wasn’t officially iced-out, according to our criteria established a few days ago). I had a nice view of Lawrie Dickson’s shack. It was pretty close to the shore. The birches were submerged in the high water which was less than two feet from his door.

As I was sketching, lo and behold, who strolls into view? Annie and Daphne. Annie had a red coat and a pink hat on, and Daphne had on her blue coat and white hat. I shouted for them to stop. I raised my paintbrush and they knew exactly why I issued to order. I quickly mixed up the colours and painted them into the picture. It took me less than two minutes, and when I was finished, I waved my hand and let them on their way."

We met Daphne in the story behind "Path Behind Mowat Lodge, Spring 1917". Tom's gift to Mrs. Crombie includes a lot of interesting science as well but that is another story. Both Daphne and Annie play important roles in the Tom Thomson history. 

Joan Murray wrote in her remarks about this painting: 

"The sketch, once titled The Artist's Hut, actually belonged to Lowery Dickson, who was a retired shantyman (another name for a logger or lumberjack), according to R.P. Little in 1955. Little identifies the figures as Mrs. Fraser (green) and Mrs. Crombie (red). In a letter to the National Gallery of Canada, 26 March 1949, Dr. Little writes that he helped build the cabin and "was there" (see the Accession file on this sketch). The spelling of Mr. Dickson's name follows the advice of his great-granddaughter, Maggie Fulton."

My Thomson friend adds a fresh perspective and some clarity to the clothing painted by Tom. 

"Another thought I had is that the lady in the red coat is not wearing a pink hat - she has a red hat and is wearing a pink shawl or scarf around her shoulders.  The pink brushstroke is too long to be a hat and is too low on her body.

I looked at the photo of Daphne Crombie and others in the sleigh in front of Mowat Lodge.  There she is wearing a fringed shawl or scarf around her shoulders.  Of course, she is also wearing a white hat, as the blue-coated lady in the sketch is."

The observations of my Thomson friend support the identification of the walkers made by "Tom Last Spring". An important correction is that Annie was wearing a matching red hat to compliment her coat. A pink scarf as suggested by my Thomson friend also makes better fashion sense. 

"Tom Last Spring", Joan and my Thomson friend are all extremely knowledgeable about the life and times of Tom Thomson. I will not even attempt to further untangle who was wearing the red coat and why R.P. Little saw green. The colour of the coat is not as important as who was taking a stroll. I will just focus on the meteorology and perhaps add some details that might otherwise have been missed.  

Features from 1915 Mowat and vicinity
superimposed on a 2023 Google Earth Image

Zoomed in Version of the 1915 Mowat Features including
Lowery Dickson's Cabin and the Red and Blue Coats
 on the road to Canoe Lake Train Station. Tom was positioned
on higher terrain overlooking the landscape

"Lowery Dickson's Cabin" actually has a lot of content which is pertinent to discovering the story behind the history. The sun was in the southwestern sky during the spring afternoon. The warmth would have felt wonderful on Tom's back while he painted. The breeze was blowing out of the northwest. A mild, weather system had passed through the day before.  A high-pressure centre was building across the landscape. Life was good at Mowat Lodge while World War One still raged in Europe.  

Actually, the sliver of stratocumulus tells the rest of the story. The blue sky and the absence of all other clouds also speak volumes. Tom was painting between weather systems and the typical parade of storms that Ontario enjoys in the spring of the year. The weather systems are guided by the jet stream in a steady progression. Tom was painting under the dry conveyor belt (DCB) of the Conveyor Belt Conceptual Model. The blog "Dancing with the Weather" describes the entire Conveyor Belt Conceptual Model in more detail. 

The Dry Conveyor Belt is explained in detail at the following link. Southward-bound air following the constant energy surfaces (see "Isentropic Surfaces - Science and Art Merges" for more details) must descend toward the equator. The air parcels warm as they descend and the sky is generally clear as the pressure rises at the surface. Dry descending air warms faster than moist air parcels which must spend some of that energy to vapourize their water content. The result is a warm layer known as a subsidence inversion. This atmospheric lid is a very dry and very effective at restricting the vertical development of all cloud originating from below.  The Dry Conveyor Belt becomes progressively cloud free on its isentropic trip due to ongoing warming descent and evapouration of any initial moisture it might have contained when the southward journey started. I jokingly refer to this type of cloud as being the result of "skull-crushing subsidence". 

The following graphics will hopefully explain better than mere words what those flat-topped stratocumulus clouds were saying. Meteorological science allows us to deduce much about the weather situation on that spring afternoon. 

The subsidence inversion typically occurs within the dry conveyor belt
located between two weather systems - area shaded in white.

A view looking eastward at a retreating Warm Conveyor Belt 
weather system focussing on the descending flow associated with the
Dry Conveyor Belt and Tom's probable location within that
weatherscape.

Every cloud pattern has a story to tell. Lewis Fry Richardson focussed on the swirls and wrote a poem (included in the following graphic) that describes how energy and swirls cascade from large to small scales. During my meteorological career, I tended to focus on the lines in the sky that must be created by those swirls. The linear features were always more obvious to me at the forecast desk. Each deformation zone allows the meteorologist to precisely understand the location and relative strengths of four, related swirls.  The area to the right as you look downstream along the dry conveyor belt must be filled with vorticity minima (N's) or anticyclonic swirls due to wind shear. Although there is not much if any water vapour in that descending mass of air to reveal those swirls, the anticyclonic rotations have profound influences on the edges and shapes of any clouds in the flow. 

The bird's eye view of satellite imagery allowed me to connect the dots of clouds and moisture to make meteorological sense of those atmospheric circulations and anticipate the impacts on the weather. Fog forecasting could be really successful using these techniques. For the purpose of "Lowery Dickson's Cabin", there are several deformation zones which would explain the hard cloud edge that Tom observed. I can't select between them without more information but the challenge to try is always fun. This information will not appear on the exam...

I am not certain of the train schedule on that spring afternoon in 1917 but perhaps Annie and Daphne were enjoying the stroll knowing that Shannon Fraser would be waiting at Canoe Lake Station for the arrival of possible Mowat Lodge clients. Shannon would certainly offer them a wagon ride back to the Lodge when they encountered him and there was only one way to and from Canoe Lake Station.

Tom Thomson driving the team of horses with                
Shannon  Fraser located in the right foreground.         
The picture was taken from the front porch of
Mowat Lodge with a wagon full of smiling guests.      

 Shannon customarily greeted the trains dressed in his trademark suit and fedora hat.  Audrey Saunders, "The Shannon Frasers," Algonquin Story, 1963 as shared in Death on a Painted Lake tells the following: 

'One of the standing jokes in the Canoe Lake community was Shannon Fraser’s optimism about the number of guests he expected on the next train. His neighbours loved to ask him how many guests he was going to pick up, whenever they saw him on his way to the station, driving along the old mill road.

“A big party comin’ in today,” he would invariably tell them. Returning later with an empty wagon and a broad grin on his face, he would explain: “I guess they must have missed that one.”

Lowery Dickson's Cabin
Alternate titles: Artist's Hut; The Artist's Hut Spring 1917
as it would have appeared in Tom's pochade box.

Inscriptions verso: 

• u.l., graphite, 11A; 
• u.l., in graphite, NG; 
  
• u.l., in graphite, THE ARTIST HUT; 
• u.r., in graphite, Rom Gold; 
• c., label, c.l., Elsie Perrin Williams Memorial Art Museum, London, Ont. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1528) 

Provenance:

•  National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1528)

A line of stratocumulus and the absence of other clouds can really reveal a lot. Too bad the cave people did not also sketch images of weather... those would have been some wall scratches that I would have certainly enjoyed deciphering. I am certain that deformation zones and swirls existed back in cave people's day. Art, science and the weather have not really changed much at all over the eons. 

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.