Tom Thomson's Burnt Area with Ragged Rocks, Spring 1915

This is another one of those sketches jam-packed with science. Creative Scene Investigation will peel back the layers of careful observation allowing us to better see the real motivation of Thomson. Tom was inspired by and immersed in the beauty of nature. Some of the clues are very subtle so I never included this painting in "Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman" presentations. Instead, I concentrated on the exciting thunderstorms and tornado panels. Otherwise, that presentation could last for days...

Burnt Area with Ragged Rocks
Alternate title: Northern River Spring 1915
Oil on panel 8 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (21.6 x 26.7 cm)
Tom's Paint Box Size

Location is always the best place to start. We are fortunate that Tom had his favourite places to paint and I suspect that Tom sketched from almost this same spot a year later. The following graphics and terrain maps will explain - and save a lot of words. Tom was looking northerly across the Grand Trunk Railway tracks just east of the road between Mowat Lodge and Canoe Lake Station. Potter Creek was still covered in ice limiting access to more distant locations. 

Important CSI clues can also be discovered in the clouds and the illumination of the scene. The light was on Tom's back and left shoulder. Tom was looking northerly across the hilly terrain at sunset. A light southeast breeze was likely.  

The grey colour of the cumulus is another important clue. Cloud droplets grow with time. Water vapour condenses on the original droplets or atmospheric particles might simply adhere to them. This is especially true for clouds within the planetary boundary layer which are continually interacting with the earth. 

Larger particles scatter light more effectively in a forward direction - Mie scattering of energy. Front-lit clouds get darker with age as the larger scatterers send incident light energy forward and away from the observer of the front-lit scene. This implies that these cumuli generated by daytime heating had been around for a while - all day in fact and they appear quite grey.  New cumulus clouds generated by the first rays of the sun heating the ground in the morning are bright and white in comparison. 

The following graphic places Thomson within the weather scene and the sunset light on that early spring evening. A weather system was approaching from the west. Tom was within the storm's anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt with less cloud overhead and the southeast breeze at the surface. The altostratus cloud he painted was rising in the frontal lift of the warm front. Typically there is less cloud south of the surface warm front. The sun still illuminated the scene as the cloud ahead of the cold front had yet to arrive. 

The bands highlighted within the altostratus clouds were another clue to discovering the CSI solution. The banding as painted by Thomson was regular and intentional in its depiction. Simply, there were swells in the atmospheric ocean. (see  "Wind Waves and Swells and Lines in the Sky" and "Keep an Open Mind" for more detailed explanations.) 

Thinner layers of altostratus moisture in the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt are very conducive to revealing the cloudy wave crests and cloud-free troughs. Swells are much more challenging to see in the cloudier cyclonic companion. (see "Tom Thomson's Islands Canoe Lake, 1916" for a specific example among many others.)

The absence of secondary wind waves suggests that the wind was also perpendicular to the swells as in the swell generation zone. As labelled in the following graphic, the cirrus level deformation zone was well to the north consistent with the altostratus cloud type. 

These features are evident in "Burnt Area with Ragged Rocks" if one just takes the time to examine the brush strokes carefully. All of the puzzle pieces fit together. Nature follows the laws of physics and Thomson was faithful to what he saw and inspired him. 

Tom’s time spent learning in the woods around Leith as a child opened his mind to the wonders of nature and laid the foundation for the art that would follow. Having an inquiring and open mind is a gift. If you paint what you see you do not need to understand the science… you just need to appreciate the natural beauty. Tom was a keen and accurate observer of nature. I am just trying to help.

Tom Thomson handling the team of horses
while Shannon Fraser in the lower right
looks on. Happy tourists enjoying the 
wagon ride to Canoe Lake Station. 

This is potentially another of those paintings where Thomson shared a wagon ride with Shannon Fraser during one of the trips to Canoe Lake Station looking for Mowat Lodge guests. The snow and ice made travel in the bush and on the waterways very challenging.  Thomson arrived in Algonquin Park in mid-March 1915. Tom travelled by train via Huntsville where he stayed at the home of Winifred Trainor for two days. 

Inscription recto: 

• l.r., T.T. (incised)
• Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario

Provenance:

• Estate of the artist
• Laing Galleries, 1945
• H.S. Southam, Ottawa
• G. Hamilton Southam, France and Portland, Ontario
• Sotheby's Toronto, 20 November 2006, lot 57
• Loch Gallery,Winnipeg
• Private collection, Toronto
• Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario

I happened to see the original painting at the AGO and remarked about the science in the sky that Tom had included to a few gallery goers assembled there. Every cloud has a story 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. 

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!