Thomson's weather works from 1917 have mainly been CSI'ed. I will gradually include other, earlier art that was not included in the first pass for one reason or another.
"Moonlight Over Canoe Lake" from 1916 offers a wonderful opportunity to revisit some very interesting and important meteorology. There is much more than meets the eye in this small plein air panel! Tom was painting what he observed and the weather never lies. This painting appears deceptively simple but includes refraction, diffraction and every component of the conveyor belt conceptual model... In short, it was a challenge for Creative Scene Investigation! I will use graphics to replace the thousands of words that might otherwise be required. Please read and look on...
 |
| Moonlight Over Canoe Lake Alternate titles: Moonlight; Moonlight on Canoe Lake Spring 1916 Oil on wood panel 8 1/2 x 10 5/8 in. (21.6 x 27 cm) Tom Thomson's Paint Box Size |
Tom Thomson made a stop in Huntsville at the home of Winifred Trainor in mid-March 1916. Tom was on his way to Algonquin Park. He would stay at Canoe Lake until mid April when he would be visited by Lawren Harris, Lawren's cousin Chester Harris and Dr. MacCallum. Tom possibly painted "Moonlight Over Canoe Lake" during that period between visits or in early May and we might even deduce the probable day of the week. Tom would head to Achray on Grand Lake later in May to work the summer as a Forest Ranger.
The title gives the general location of Tom's painting away. The terrain of Canoe Lake and hints included in other paintings will provide the details. The alternate title could be misleading - more on that later.
 |
| Tom was painting from the water's edge looking southward across the expanse of the north basin of Canoe Lake. The signature islands appear almost in line with the more distant shoreline from his low, water-level perspective. The western shoreline of Hayhurst Point was possibly to Tom's left but he could have also been at the very tip of Hayhurst Point at water level and simply looking more to the south-southwest. |
The moon was certainly the important subject for Tom in this plein air work. Tom was painting at around 9 to 10 pm during the Waxing Gibbous phase of the lunar cycle. The Waxing Gibbous phase is when the lit-up part of the Moon grows from the First Quarter Moon and lasts until the Full Moon and such a moon must rise in the evening hours. Officially the Waxing Gibbous phase lasts 7.38 days. The Waxing Gibbous phase that Tom observed was about six days ahead of the full moon.
The full moon in March 1916 was on the 19th so Tom might have been on his way to Huntsville on March 13th to visit Winnie Trainor but he certainly would have not arrived at Canoe Lake to paint the March Waxing Gibbous moon.
The April 1916 full moon occurred on April 18th implying the date of Tom's weather observation would have been around April 12th.
The May 1916 full moon occurred on May 17th requiring May 11th as the date of the Waxing Gibbous phase that Tom observed.
Here is where my Thomson friend comes to the rescue.
Where is the ice? The answer is that Canoe Lake was ice-free on that moonlit evening and that can likely rule out the April 12th estimate for this painting as being too early.
"This would seem to suggest it was not too early in the spring, as the ice usually goes off Canoe Lake around April 21 or so, give or take a few days in either direction. Earliest recent date for an ice-free Canoe Lake is March 29, latest May 15, so quite a possible range."
But Tom had taken a job as a fire ranger and he was supposed to report for service on May 1st, 1916. It is unlikely that Tom was at Canoe Lake on May 11th, 1916?
Tom's comings and goings in the spring of 1916 are also up for debate. Thomson did stop to see Winnie in Huntsville in mid-March. Lawren Harris received his commission at Camp Borden on May 5th, 1916, so presumably had returned to Toronto by train in early May. The painting and fishing trip that Thomson enjoyed with his friends likely occurred sometime in the last two weeks of April 1916.
My Thomson friend states: "it is almost certain the fishing party travelled to the Cauchon Lakes by train. One of the sketches from that trip appears to show a bit of rotten ice in the foreground, though in most of the sketches any water seems ice free."
The travels of Thomson in 1916 are still in question but my Thomson friend continues to unravel the likely movements of our artist. There is even a possibility that this painting was from the autumn of 1916 when Thomson was at Canoe Lake as described below.
My Thomson friend notes: "Tom did write to MacCallum from Basin Depot on October 4th, but could have been laid off immediately on his return to Achray, then got on the train to head back to Canoe Lake."
Tom's October 4th letter:
Dear Sir — [...] The Country up here is just taking the fall colour and by the end of the week will be at its best.Could you arrange to come up this week. [...]Have done very little sketching this summer as I find that the two jobs don't fit in. It would be great for two artists or whatever you call us but the natives can't see what we paint for. A photo would be great but the painted things are awuful. When we are travelling two go together one for the canoe and the other the pack and there's no place for a sketch outfit when your fireranging.We are not fired yet but I am hoping to be put off right away.[...]Yours trulyTom Thomson
An October date for "Moonlight Over Canoe Lake" might satisfy all of the known constraints except... it does not leave much time for Tom to hike from Basin Depot to Achray (15km) and then return to Canoe Lake. Even if he received his notice immediately on his return, he would have had to pack up and wait for one of the three days a week the train passed through Achray. November 4th, 1916 was the next waxing gibbous moon. According to the published Tom Thomson chronology, Tom returned to the Shack in Toronto either in late October or early November 1916. When and perhaps even where Tom observed this moonlit scene is still up in the air ... so to speak. It might even be Grand Lake and the waxing gibbous moon of September 6th. Stay tuned.
The blotchy style of "Moonlight Over Canoe Lake" is also more reminiscent of his art created later in 1916. Many issues of the season and even the year a particular painting was completed have been discovered within Thomson's catalogue raisonné. If only Tom had made just a few notes, he could have saved a lot of speculation.
In any event, it is probable that on that Waxing Gibbous moon evening, there was a strong storm approaching - cirrostratus coming at us.. (also see "Wind Waves and Swells and Lines in the Sky")
The halo encircling the moon also grabbed Tom's attention and he included it in accurate detail. The refraction of light through the hexagonal ice crystals of cirrostratus clouds produces the classic 22° halo. The refraction through the ice crystals also splits up the rainbow colours of the sunlight reflected from the face of the waxing gibbous moon. Long-wavelength red light is refracted by a slightly smaller angle than blue so appears on the inside of the halo - just as Tom painted.
 |
| Classic full moon 22° halo. |
The parallel rays of light reflectedThe 22° halo can be measured with your hand. Stretch out the fingers of your hand at arm’s length. The tips of the thumb and little finger then subtend roughly 20°. Place your thumb over the sun and the halo will be near the little fingertip. The halo is always the same diameter regardless of its position in the sky. Sometimes only parts of the complete circle are visible depending upon the distribution of the hexagonal ice crystals and intervening cloud - just as Tom witnessed. One more point to illustrate that Tom was a genius in his observations especially when he had a brush in his hand. Tom even included the "minimum deviation" effect by the lighter and brighter brush strokes just inside the 22° halo. The effect can also be observed in rainbows which Tom also painted. Most rays of light are refracted through the wafting ice crystals at angles close to 22° to form the bright inner edge of the halo.
 | ||
|
 |
| The Bernoulli Effect tends to keep the ice crystals falling flat and held perfectly orientated for refraction and the 22° Halo. |
The intervening altostratus cloud blocked some of the 22° Halo. The combination of cirrostratus and altostratus cloud are classic indicators of a warm conveyor belt - more on that later.
The angular size of the corona depends on the diameters of the cloud droplets - small droplets produce large coronae. For the same reason, the corona is clearest when the size of the droplets is most uniform. Reddish colours always occupy the outer part of a corona ring. The corona is much smaller than the 22° halo.
The cloud particles that produced Thomson's corona were not especially uniform in size as there was no obvious separation of colours. It would have been a challenge to include that level of detail in the oils anyway even if it had been there!
 |
| Summary of the above Creative Scene Investigation |
The following video produced from the "Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman" presentation explains the white line of the "Moon" on the distant horizon of the lake. The surface area reflecting the moonlight to the viewer's eye actually increases significantly with distance. The ratio of glinting reflection to refraction into the water also increases with distance. The result is a bright line that was observed and recorded in so many of Tom Thomson's paintings. The animation gives an idea of how the PowerPoint presentation worked. The talking points would appear and then vanish as I finished explaining each.
Now for the weather that can be deduced from the cloud patterns.
 |
The cloud patterns in the above graphic were regular swell waves in the altostratus-type cloud with no strong evidence of lateral banding due to wind waves. This suggests that the col in the deformation zone pattern was overhead. The swell wave crests were also angled toward the southwest. This places Tom under the Cyclonic Companion of the Warm Conveyor Belt. Easterly winds of the Cold Conveyor Belt would be convergent and accelerate around Hayhurst Point perhaps explaining the bowed shape of the wave crests as recorded by Tom. Diffraction of the waves around Hayhurst Point could also explain that shape. In both instances though, the wind would have to be easterly. That was a lot of wind and waves for 9 pm in the evening! |
 |
| Tom located at the gold star would have been looking up at the cyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt (WCB) not very far west of the central axis of the WCB (the large red arrow). |
Inscription verso:- u.l.c., inscribed, Canoe Lake - 1916 jm;
- u.l.c., Moonlight $25 / Tom Thomson;
- label, Gavin Henderson Galleries, 759 Yonge Street, Toronto, Moonlight - Canoe Lake / Tom Thomson 1916 / $300 Art Gallery of Hamilton (1992.22.1)
Provenance:
- Estate of the artist
- Gavin Henderson Galleries, Toronto
- Roy G. Cole, Hamilton, ON, by 1953
- Art Gallery of Hamilton (1992.22.1). Gift of Roy G. Cole, 1992
The assigned value for this painting jumped in leaps and bounds over the years. The initial assessment of $25 pencilled on the back of the panel supposedly in the spring of 1918 would equate to $616.47 in 2022 dollars. Recall that Tom's patron Dr. James MacCallum was in the habit of paying $15 (worth $369.88 in 2022) for those plein air paintings when one caught his fancy. I suspect Jim (J.E.H.) MacDonald initially assigned the $25 dollar estimate and he realized back then that this particular painting was indeed special and worth more!
Roy Cole made a terrific purchase in 1953 for $300 (about $3377.28 in today's dollars and still a significant increase over the initial estimated value of $616). "Moonlight Over Canoe Lake" would certainly fetch more than $1.5 million. By extension of the suspected J.E.H. MacDonald estimate of the relative value of this work in the spring of 1918, "Moonlight Over Canoe Lake" should probably fetch $2.5 million in the art auctions of 2023.
If all you think about is money, then Lawren Harris was correct when he advised his wealthy friends to buy Thomson paintings. My desire is that you should ponder more about Tom's art than currency or how he died. What really matters is how he lived!
The beauty of the science and the meteorology in this weather observation means a lot to me and certainly took a while to CSI. Tom painted a waxing gibbous moon at 9 to 10 pm. The date could have been Thursday, October 5th, 1916 as a vigorous autumn storm approached Canoe Lake. The details of the 22° halo and the glow of the corona were carefully and accurately observed. Tom was experimenting with a blotchy approach to thickly applying paints to his panels in 1916 and "Moonlight Over Canoe Lake" was one of the early panels to demonstrate that approach. Tom was not making this stuff up... Tom was living life and enjoying it immensely. And he did all of this on a small wooden panel measuring only 8 1/2 by 10 5/8 inches. Tom could have been eager to pick up the brushes again after a summer of fire-ranging!
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.
PSS: Should you wish to have Creative Scene Investigation applied to one of Thomson's works that I have not yet included in this Blog, please let me know. It may already be completed but not yet posted. In any event, I will move your request to the top of the list. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! There is a lot of science in this small panel and I wanted to cover most of it...
No comments:
Post a Comment