This is one of my favourite paintings to discuss in "Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman". The sketch was not included very often in the PowerPoint presentation as there are no tornadoes or whizz-bang sunset colours. This painting was not a favourite of the audience. The meteorology and science are subtle but with some Creative Scene Investigation, much can be discovered about this nature-scape. Tom painted what he witnessed! The truth and accuracy of his observations can be revealed by examining the details.
Tom didn’t sign this sketch either. There is no “TT-1917” estate stamp mark or damage. Tom was simply making a weather observation. He seemed to be torn between focusing on the weather or the patterns in the water: a weather scape of a nature scape. The horizon is pretty much in the middle of the panel which is something I avoid. However, there are lines everywhere in this composition and long streaks all tell interesting tales.
Happily, the atmosphere and the lake are both fluids. The cloud patterns revealed the circulations in the sky while the ice was a longer integration of the movements of the waves and currents. Curved lines in the clouds and in the ice reveal the same basic flows. Let’s take a close look at "Northern Lake, Early Winter, Spring 1917".
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Northern Lake, Early Winter, Spring 1917
Oils on wood panel
8.5 x 10.5 inches (21.6 x 26.7 cm)
Tom's Paint Box size
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The location of the inspiration is always the first place to start in any investigation. Tom did not have to travel far to find painting material in the spring of 1917. Hiking and paddling can be challenges in the spring anyway and doing either takes time away from actually painting. The landforms included in Tom’s sketch are definitive and having paddled Canoe Lake, I have some idea about where Tom might have stood.
This vista matches the landscape only a few hundred yards northeast of Mowat Lodge looking across the outflow of Potter Creek from the Canoe Lake western shore. The accompanying graphic correlates the details of the western shore of Hayhurst Point and the eastern shore of Canoe Lake. The lines seem to match very well so Tom was looking south-easterly and he would easily be back in time for lunch.
The mid-morning light would only touch the tops of those clouds when viewed looking in that direction. Note how the cloud pieces appear brighter on their left sides. The cloud bases were dark and optically thick. There are interesting and important variations in those dark tones. Afternoon lighting would have illuminated the entire leading face of that cloud bank so that timing was not an option.
We know Tom was not far from Mowat Lodge. He would finish this weather observation well before the next meal. The was no need to miss a meal made by Annie Fraser and that repast was certainly lunch and not supper.
The cloud elements have the size of altocumulus. A thumb will cover the weakly convective cloud pieces if you hold your hand out at arm’s length. These clouds are riding the mid-level isentropic surface (constant energy path) of a warm conveyor belt on their northward trip.
Evoking the conveyor belt conceptual model places this weather scape into an important context that can be easily understood. The leading edge of the altocumulus is a deformation zone. That first band of thick cloud is actually a large swell within the atmospheric ocean. Swells in the atmosphere were described in "
Wind Waves and Swells and Lines in the Sky" as well as several other places within the Art and Science Blog. The crest of the atmospheric swell occupies the upper half of the weather scape. The grey cloud in the distance is actually in the trough region of the swell where there was no altocumulus cloud. Tom could see the grey bases of the cirrus cloud through the trough which was absent of altocumulus cloud. That is exactly what he painted.
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If the clear area of the Swell Trough is limited to the size
included in Tom's painting, the Lifted Condensation Level (LCL)
is below the average amplitude between the swell crest and trough.
The bands of cloud within the swell crest were wider that the
cloud-free areas in the swell trough. |
As a review, the details of atmospheric swells, wind waves and their association with the deformation zone are summarized in the accompanying graphic. Tom painted the first swell crest behind the deformation zone.
The detailed bands as painted superimposed within the swell crest are particularly interesting. These result from the strong wind diverging from the col ( green oval in the centre from which the winds diverge) of the deformation zone. The wind superimposes shorter wavelength and smaller amplitude wind gravity waves on top of the large swell crest.
Tom observed that banding and included it in his weather scape. The wind wave troughs are highlighted on Tom's banding with light blue lines in the upper half of the following graphic. The wind wave crests occupied by thicker cloud and ascending air are darker and labelled with dark text in the lower half of the graphic.
There are two options for locating Thomson within the weather scape of the approaching warm conveyor belt and explaining the cloud structures that he observed. The col in the deformation zone was not overhead as the atmospheric frame winds are a minimum near the col which separates the divergent flows of the deformation zone. The wind waves require the stronger winds located some distance away from the col in order to develop.
Option 1 would require Tom to be under the anticyclonic confluent asymptote of the warm conveyor belt. The cloud is more stratiform within the anticyclonic companion and more conducive to gravity waves. There also tends to be less cloud within this relatively gently descending portion of the circulation. The wind waves would tend to tilt away from the observer as well due to the stronger relative winds found along the receding confluent asymptote. Note that the winds decrease toward the anticyclonic circulation centre, N.
Option 2 associated with the cyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt would require the wind waves to tilt toward the observer. There is also typically more cloud and more convection within this active and unstable region of the weather system. The winds also decrease toward the cyclonic circulation centre, X.
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Geographical view of Tom's vantage within the weather scape of the
Conveyor Belt Conceptual Model |
I feel that Option 1 is the best solution to satisfy the requirements. Tom was painting the anticyclonic companion on the warm conveyor belt looking east-southeasterly.
Similar swirls occur in the patterns of the chunks of ice and I suspect that Tom was very interested in those as well. The surface winds can create elongated lines exactly like deformation zones in the sky. The processes are the same and they also induce vertical currents in the water. The points of land and shoals influence these lines as well. The diffraction of waves around a point of land is an important consideration. There are so many factors to study in order to fully understand the lines in the water hat I just wish to scratch the surface, so to speak.
The surface winds on that spring day were funnelling along the south-to-north orientation of Canoe Lake. There is an extended fetch from that wind direction. There were no white caps included in the painting so Beaufort Scale 3 with a wind of 7 to 10 knots seems to fit the weather scape.
That portion of the conveyor belt conceptual model is the realm of the cold conveyor belt. Only a weak cold conveyor belt would permit a steady southerly breeze. This fact requires that the weather system on that day was a typical mid-latitude storm that was moving steadily with the jet stream across the landscape.
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The blue arrow of the Cold Conveyor Belt (CCB) undercuts both
the Warm (WCB) and Dry (DCB) Conveyor Belts. A weaker weather
is associated with weaker conveyor belts. |
If the speed of the weather system is faster than the speed of the Cold Conveyor Belt (CCB), the surface wind (green block arrow) will be in the same direction as the motion of the
system. A system moving from the southwest across the landscape will have a southwesterly surface wind as a cold conveyor belt.
The system crossed the area without hesitation. The precipitation, if there was any would have come and gone quickly. Stronger westerly winds would signal the passage of the cold front and the system. Since Tom was painting the anticyclonic companion, we can be certain that the cold front was perhaps just a few hours away to the west.
Reading these swirls and lines is essential for a canoeist especially if they do not want to scratch their hull on the Canadian Shield granite. For deeper water and to avoid the shoals, paddle along the flow separating the surface swirls.
As my Thomson friend aptly observed: "I was not previously familiar with this sketch, and have really enjoyed spending some time looking it over. The composition is wonderful in the way it leads the eye around and back into the image, regardless of whether one looks at the sky, the water, or the land. There is a great sense of movement and a vivid feeling of the weather Tom was experiencing."
The take-home message is that Tom faithfully painted what he saw. He was not making this stuff up! The weather and the water were the stars of his compositions and not backdrops. Careful interpretation of those lines allows us to almost stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder and better understand what inspired the man to paint what he did.
Finally, the title for this painting assigned by Thomson's friends in the Studio Building during the spring of 1918 may also be flawed. Tom was painting on location in the spring of 1917 using Mowat Lodge as his home base. This is not an "early winter" weather observation and that portion of the title is certainly erroneous.
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"Northern Lake, Early Winter" Spring 1917
as it would have appeared in Tom's pochade box.
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Inscription verso:
in red pencil, Laidlaw 1;
u.l., in ink, AM;
u.l., in graphite, RA.L.;
u.m., in blue pencil, 14;
l.m., in graphite, No. 55 Mrs Harkness;
u.r., in graphite, Rom Joly?;
u.m., in orange/red crayon, Laidlaw;
u.r., in deep red crayon, 1 (circled);
l.l. label, no number / TT
Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario
Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Elizabeth Thomson Harkness, Annan and Owen Sound
R.A. Laidlaw, Toronto
Private collection, Toronto
Sotheby's Toronto, 6 May 1991, no. 121
Private collection, Toronto
Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario
As the provenance states, Robert Laidlaw did purchase the untitled painting from Tom's eldest sister probably in 1922. Recall that Robert A. Laidlaw was the wealthy friend of Lawren Harris who made the family fortune from the "R Laidlaw Lumber Company". Mr. Laidlaw made several purchases of art based on Lawren's advice. The painting was later sold and remains in other private collections.
And that's the end of that story...
Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,
Phil Chadwick
This vista matches the landscape only a few hundred yards northeast of Mowat Lodge looking across the outflow of Potter Creek from the Canoe Lake western shore. The accompanying graphic correlates the details of the western shore of Hayhurst Point and the eastern shore of Canoe Lake. The lines seem to match very well so Tom was looking south-easterly and he would easily be back in time for lunch. 
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