Tom Thomson's Early Spring 1917

This painting looks very similar to "April in Algonquin Park Spring 1917" and possibly for a very good reason. It could have been painted earlier on the very same day. The colours on Tom's palette were also similar. The following Creative Scene Investigation explains why this might be the case.

 

Early Spring
Alternate title: Spring Ice and Birches Spring 1917
Oil on wood panel 8 1/2 x 10 9/16 in. (21.6 x 26.9 cm)
Tom Thomson's Paint Box Size

Location is very important in CSI. The clues to deduce the place where "Early Spring 1917" was painted are very subtle. I propose that Tom walked just a couple of hundred yards from Mowat Lodge to the Canoe Lake waterfront. He painted looking east-southeastward toward his favourite but probably inaccessible campsite on Hayhurst Point. A quick look at the distant shoreline does not reveal anything significant. But a closer examination divulges enough clues.  Everyday experience and observation of variations in the hues of distant objects tend to lose their significance becoming lost in their familiarity. 

The following graphic labels Hayhurst Point (HP) on both the top-down geographical view and the painting "Early Spring 1917". Note that to the right of HP in the painting, the hues are subdued and more white. The water edge is also raised but just by a smidgen! To the left of HP, the chroma of the shoreline vegetation is more saturated and the edge of the water is just a bit lower. I propose that this is exactly what one would witness standing on the western shore of Canoe Lake just north of the Trainor Cottage. All of this is easily ignored as people witness these phenomena every day and tend not to see the obvious details in paintings. 

The following graphic describes the other important facts that can be gleaned from Tom's brushwork. 

Solar Zenith Explained - The Solar Altitude Angle of April 1st at Mowat Lodge is 50 degrees. 

The illumination of a scene does not typically fit into the binary front-lit or back-lit extremes but is somewhere in between. I imagine a flat plane perpendicular to a rod which is the altitude angle pointing toward the sun. I place this imaginary, three-dimensional object in my mind's eye and position the plane so that it separates the light and dark. The arrow must point toward the source of the light. My COMET friends could turn this imagined object into a visualization that could be interactively manipulated in three-dimensions to replicate the lighting that one was observing. I do not have the tools to do that so my clunky PowerPoint graphic much suffice.

The following graphic emphasizes the main differences between front-lit and back-lit illumination of clouds. It does gloss over the observation of top-lit clouds which must display darker bases as a result of the optical depth of the thick clouds. The description of the imaginary, three-dimensional flat plane and rod above is more applicable to all possibilities of illumination. This simple approach is almost as informative though. If you know any two of the sun's position, time of day or direction to north, you can easily deduce the third. The front-lit image on the left of the graphic below illustrates the situation that Tom was painting near midday on that spring day - except the wind in my image was northerly. 

This painting could have been completed at midday on the same day as Tom observed "April in Algonquin Park Spring 1917". The weather and ice conditions were compatible with a weather observation made later in the day from Lowery Dickson's Point. 

                    Midday illumination to the left              Late afternoon sunlight and angle to the right

      

The midday convection was more vigorous so vector addition of the updrafts with the same horizontal wind speed would yield a slightly more upright slope to the windward side of those cumuli.  The weaker updrafts recorded in the late afternoon would be more sloped with the southerly winds. There is a dramatic difference in the amount of snow on the ground but that might be explained by just the orientation of the terrain to the sun. The snow was not going to melt (sublimate) on a dry spring day. Perhaps more importantly, Lowery would have also had a selection of beverages and Tom quite enjoyed "happy hour". It all makes perfect sense. 

"Early Spring 1917" as it would have appeared              
in Tom Thomson's Paint Box

Inscription verso: 

• u.m., in turquoise blue ink, As a brother of Tom Thomson and knowing his (w)ork well I have no hesitation in certifying that this sketch is his work. July 21, 1958 Geo Thomson; 
• c., below inscription, in graphite, Early Spring / X / l (circled) / Tom Thomson; 
• l.r., in black marker, Property of NORMAN D. HARKNESS; 
• u.r., on masking tape, 76-14; 
• l.l., label, Early Spring. By Tom Thomson. Not for Sale; 
• label FROM THEO. ERBAYN BOOKSTORE Established 1879 SALISBURY, N.C. Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario 

Provenance:

• Estate of the artist Elizabeth Thomson Harkness, Annan and Owen Sound 
• Norman D. Harkness, Salisbury, N.C., by descent 
• Laing Galleries, Toronto 
• Private collection, Toronto 
• Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario 

The ice in the north basin of Canoe Lake did not look safe enough to cross to his favourite campsite on Hayhurst Point. Canoe Lake is 50 to 65 feet deep east of Mowat Lodge and going through the ice would certainly be life-threatening. 

My friend Roy MacGregor published an article in the Globe and Mail on October 1st, 2010 telling about "A break in the mysterious case of Tom Thomson, Canada's Van Gogh". It is a fascinating read! Roy had interviewed Jimmy Stringer, fondly remembered as the 'mayor' of Canoe Lake in Huntsville in the late winter of 1973. As Roy wrote: "The truth's still not told, laddie," Jimmy kept repeating as he sat on the edge of a rumpled bed in the $9 room he had taken at the Empire Hotel in Huntsville, Ont."

Jimmy had lived most of his 72 years at Canoe Lake and was "absolute that Thomson's body had not been exhumed." Tom was still in Mowat Cemetery.  Jimmy was planning on telling Roy the details of that portion of the Thomson story in the next few days. As Roy relates in the article:  Jimmy "collected his groceries and headed back to Canoe Lake by taxi. He would walk the rest of the way in over the ice to the ramshackle home near the mouth of Potter Creek that he shared with his bachelor brother".

Jimmy never made it across the Canoe Lake ice, fell through and drowned. Jimmy never finished telling Roy his version of the truth of the Thomson story.  And yes, Jimmy Stringer's home was previously Lowery Dickson's place and he probably tried to walk on ice similar to that which Tom painted in "Early Spring 1917".

Life is so very fragile. All that might be left are memories to share with those who care. The more you look, the more of those tales there are to tell. 

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.