Tom Thomson's "Hot Summer Moonlight Summer 1915" was a challenge. The terrain did not line up! Try as I might... I was unable to convince myself of the location of this painting.
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Hot Summer Moonlight Summer 1915
Oil on wood panel 8 7/16 x 10 1/2 in. (21.4 x 26.7 cm)
Tom's Paint Box Size |
All of the investigations into his art revealed that Tom did not make stuff up! He painted almost exactly what he saw which makes Creative Scene Investigation possible in the first place. It is impossible to analyze fantasy. At this point, my Thomson friend came to the rescue and knew exactly where "Hot Summer Moonlight " was painted. That information changed everything!
Let's start with the location, which is essential to establish if Creative Scene Investigation (CSI) is to be credible. My Thomson friend took the following picture and provided the details that established the site as an identical match for Tom's plein air vista. Tom may have been on the porch of the Out-Side In or on the shore of Grand Lake just to the east. Note that Tom Thomson actually painted the sign that hung above the porch of the ranger cabin where he would stay with Ed Godin, his fellow fire ranger during the summer of 1916. That sign is included in the accompanying picture.
The following graphic matches the terrain features included in Thomson's painting with the elevations of a topographical map. Tom's view toward the south-southwest is between the two red arrows. The various hills are matched by number and text to the specific topographical features.
This revelation of location did change everything! The original Thomson catalogue raisonné was incorrect in some critical information. "Hot Summer Moonlight" was painted in 1916 from Achray probably just after he reported to work on May 1st to be a fire ranger for that summer.
Professor Dwight from the University of Toronto spent time at the U of T Forestry Camp at Achray in the 1920s and 1930s. He heard about Tom Thomson from some of the old-timers. Professor Dwight was told that Tom had originally lived in the ranger cabin to the west of where the stone headquarters building now stands. That ranger cabin is long gone but its location is included in the following graphic. My Thomson friend also found an image of that ranger cabin which can be seen in the Algonquin Park Archives at https://algonquinpark.catalogaccess.com/photos/6004.
As recorded in Ottelyn Addison's 'Algonquin Story', fire rangers hired for the summer were expected to report for duty on May 1st. (Recall that Ottelyn Addison (1908-1997) was the daughter of Ranger Mark Robinson, Tom Thomson's friend at Canoe Lake.) Presumably, Thomson was at Achray on Grand Lake by then and staying in the ranger cabin mentioned above. Ed Godin, Tom's fellow fire ranger later told Blodwen Davies, Canadian journalist and historian that Tom moved into the Out Side In on about the first of June. The fire ranger job ran till September 30, though might be extended if the risk of fires was still high.
There are no detailed records of Tom's travels with Ed Godin while he was a fire ranger. Apparently, the summer of 1916 was hot and dry but fortunately, there were relatively few fires in Algonquin Park. Tom and Ed Godin did follow the log drive down the Petawawa in the early summer when the water levels were high (
hence sketches like Bateaux, Sandbank with Logs, etc.). They could have gone all the way to Petawawa and taken the train back to Achray, or else turned around at the confluence of the Petawawa and what is now the Barron River and paddled back to Achray. No one knows for certain.
Tom and Ed probably paddled around the lakes in the area, walked the trails, and climbed some of the higher hills to look for smoke in the distance. They could not have travelled very far except by water. There were no fire towers in Algonquin Park in 1916 - those towers would be built starting in the 1920s.
Tom is reported to have made regular trips to the Basin Lake Depot to pick up and drop off the mail. One account says he went weekly, but given the distance (about 5 km) and the fact that he would have had to walk most of the way there and back, my Thomson friend is not sure it was that frequent. Traces of the road still exist, but the journey would have been all on foot from the shore of Grand Lake to Basin Lake. One of the rangers suggested at some time that they should be provided with a horse to make the journey a little easier, but that didn't happen.
As Tom wrote to Dr. James MacCallum on October 4th (presumably 1916):
"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 awful. 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."
The bottom line is that Tom did not paint as much as he would have liked! He might have found thirty minutes in his working day to complete a plein air weather observation at almost any time during the summer of 1916.
In any event, there was no lasting harm done. Tom included enough clues in his painting that the catalogue raisonné entry for "Hot Summer Moonlight" can be fixed. The following results from the Creative Scene Investigation will describe how...
The clincher is that Tom had to be looking southward in order to observe the gibbous moon. The moon is the most important clue in this observation of nature. The right side of the waxing gibbous moon was illuminated on that evening - as it is for all observers in the northern hemisphere.
It is probable that given the above constraints, this painting may have been completed as early as May 11th, 1916. This is my personal favourite estimate although it does conflict with the official title. The fire-ranging job would have just been getting started and Tom was still kind of on his own in the ranger cabin.
As well, plein air painting during a hot and buggy evening in the summer is typically not fun. The mosquitoes and black flies would be in a feeding frenzy on any exposed flesh making it challenging to get into and stay within the artistic zone. Tom did not own a modern insect suit. On July 7, 1917, the day before he died, a letter to Dr. James MacCallum describes Tom's feelings about biting bugs:
"The weather has been wet and cold all spring and the flies and mosquitos much worse than I have seen them any year and the fly dope doesnt have any effect on them."
Tom did not like blood from bug bites dripping down his nose any more than I do. In any case, spare time in the summer was better-spent fishing. Just my opinion of course.
The first quarter waxing moon comes every month and it could have been a hot summer night when Tom painted this weather observation. Again, without some first-hand evidence from Tom, no one can be certain.
Now back to the science... Recall that the Moon traces a similar path through the sky as the Sun although the Moon can wander by up to 5 degrees relative to the Sun's track. An angle of 5 degrees can be approximated by the width of the three central fingers on your outstretched hand.
The following graphic depicts the "ecliptic" which is the plane containing the sun and the planets. The major planets in our solar system stay within just 3 degrees of the ecliptic. Mercury is the exception with its orbit inclined to the ecliptic by 7 degrees.
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The planets are not to scale and the graphic is purely intended to illustrate the
concept of the ecliptic. The real scale is astronomical… so to speak.
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The planets are all roughly aligned on a plane, with some orbits varying slightly above and below the plane. Astronomers believe this is because of how the solar system was formed. A large ball of spinning gas and dust must eventually compress by its own gravity and momentum into a quasi-flat disc. The most compressed material in the center eventually formed the sun, while other clumps further out gathered up more and more material in one place until they each formed a planet. The moon orbits the Earth within this ecliptic plane. Newtonian physics explains how the ecliptic formed and there is no need to invoke Einstein.
Another view of the phases of the moon within this ecliptic includes the positioning of the moon relative to the Earth and the Sun (the light rays emanating from the top of the above graphic). The double-headed white arrow indicates the orientation during which Tom painted his observation. The moon orbits the Earth which rotates daily on its tilted axis. The motions of the moon and the sun viewed from our location on a spinning globe are very confusing - we are non-inertial observers! The geometry is much simpler from the perspective of the ecliptic. I find this particular graphic very illuminating... The moon phases displayed are as viewed from the northern hemisphere.
The following graphic illustrates the elevation of the sun as viewed from Achray looking southward for important times of the year. The sun is highest in the sky for the summer solstice - reaching almost 70 degrees! The solar elevations are the lowest at the winter solstice. The solar elevations must lie somewhere between these two extremes during the rest of the year. I have included the solar elevation for May 11th, as an illustration, to indicate what I propose as the probable solar and moon elevations for this particular painting.
The approximation is that the moon follows a similar path as the sun. In Tom's weather observation, the moon is not quite as high as might be expected for the summer solstice - which is a consideration that May 11th is my preferred date. The evidence is admittedly far from conclusive though as sometimes the moon appears to stray far from the path of the sun.
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Classic corona
around the moon
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There was also a corona just visible around the moon through a break in the clouds. The Corona is described in more detail in "
Tom Thomson's Moonlight". The corona was subtle here and not a feature of this painting.
The sun had set and the night was dark when Tom completed this observation. Tom was observing astronomical twilight in which the "sky illumination is so faint that most casual observers would regard the sky as fully dark". In mid-latitudes, astronomical twilight can last about 1/2 hour after sunset from spring through fall but up to an hour near the summer solstice. As a result, Tom's southerly springtime view would have been observed at least 1/2 hour after sunset. For a May painting session, these estimates suggest 9 pm as a good time for painting "Hot Summer Moonlight". But the story does not end there... there was lots of weather to paint!
Tom was probably inspired by the weather as much as by the moon. In fact, the sky was overcast and Tom was fortunate to view the moon at all between breaks in the cloud.
As mentioned in the above graphic, the cloud types and structures are associated with the anticyclonic companion of a significant warm conveyor belt. The orientation of the swells even correspond to those in the following graphic with Tom located at the yellow star.
Four swells of altostratus (the fourth in the upper right corner) reveal that the centre of the storm was still far to the southwest. Troughs in those swell gravity waves provided the breaks in the cloud cover that allowed Tom to view the moon. There was no indication of smaller-scale wind gravity waves superimposed on those swells - it was dark after all! If Tom had paused to watch the clouds move, he should have seen them drifting slowly to the left (eastward). Weather diagnosis is much easier when viewing the actual clouds and their relative motions!
The small and uniform ice crystals of the thin overcast cirrostratus cloud created the iridescence that also caught Tom's eye. Diffraction is responsible for these pastel colours when the light source is within 40 degrees (
but most intense when within 10 degrees) behind the small and uniform scatterers. Iridescence was also described in "
Tom Thomson's Rocky Shore and Sky Summer 1915" and is not just a daytime phenomenon.
These weather clues allow us to place Thomson within the Conveyor Belt Conceptual Model below. Tom would have been very near the yellow star in that graphic looking toward the south-southwest.
The cold conveyor belt (CCB) of the Conveyor Belt Conceptual Model is the final chapter of this weather story. If I had been able to paint with Tom that evening, the weather diagnosis would have been easier and conclusive. Unfortunately, the painting does not reveal the direction of the wind that was generating the very significant wave action. The wind that Tom painted was the cold conveyor belt as depicted by the low-level blue arrow beneath the warm conveyor belt in the above graphic. It is described in some detail in "Weather Lessons for Everyone from the Cold Conveyor Belt Wizard".
Briefly, if easterly winds were churning up the night-time waves that Tom observed, the approaching storm was strong and approaching slowly - a lot of weather was on the way and it would be wise to hunker down. If southwesterly winds were driving the waves, the approaching system was weaker than average and in a hurry to arrive and pass east of Grand Lake - no significant impact was expected.
Either weather option was possible and we do not know what actually did occur. Note that the overall west-east orientation of Grand Lake results in the funnelling of the synoptic scale wind - westerly and easterly winds are encouraged by the terrain. A significant southwesterly wind would still be possible over the east basin of Grand Lake given the long fetch but that is not what Tom observed.
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| Wonderful friends and supporters of Tom Thomson |
This is another one of those panels from the stack of Thomson's paintings retrieved from the Shack. In the spring of 1918 Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald had a mountainous task to sort through Tom's efforts of the previous three years. The warm colours of the sunlight reflected from the face of the moon must have reminded them of a hot summer evening and thus that name was selected.
The appreciation of art is a personal experience and everyone is different and sees something unique - as it should be. Far from critical, I admire the dedication of Tom's friends and applaud their efforts even when they might be flawed.
I saw something different than either Lawren or Jim. I realized that Tom was awake and at his paint box on the shoreline because the weather was unusual. The wind was significant even at 9 pm in the evening! The sound of the waves and the whitecaps would have provided the soundtrack for the nocturnal plein air experience. The moon was up and provided some light to paint by - but not much. There was no light at all when the altostratus drifted in to block the face of the moon. But there were no biting bugs in mid-May. The insects (which are crucial and beneficial for nature) would be released soon enough in murderous hordes during the third week of May. Simply, Tom was intrigued and had to record the weather that was blowing in the wind.
In addition, I saw the science and that allowed the unravelling of the details that Tom included in his weather observation. Tom might have made the task a bit easier by leaving a few notes explaining his motivation and inspiration. But that is okay - he was in a rush to absorb and record every experience of his life surrounded by nature in the Algonquin wilderness.
Inscription verso:
- u.c., estate stamp;
- u.c., in ink on label, James MacCallum / (in graphite) Moonlight - Hot Summer Night;
- u.r., in graphite, on label, T.89;
- c.r., in graphite, Hot Summer / Moonlight;
- l.r., in black, upside down, 23;
- b.c., in graphite, H. Mortimer Lamb / 503 Drummond Bldg. / Montreal National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4648)
Provenance:
- Estate of the artist
- Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4648). Bequest of Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto, 1944
The beauty of the science and the meteorology in this weather observation is inspirational. Tom painted a waxing quarter gibbous moon around 9 pm - it might have been May 11th, 1916. There was a lot of wind but no biting bugs. Life was good!
Neither of the following images of "Hot Summer Moonlight" can be accurate. One might be too yellow while the other could be excessively green which highlights the corona. The actual painting in the National Gallery of Canada must certainly look different than either image. I was there and nose to nose with this painting but I forget which image might be closer to reality.
As Tom wrote to Dr. MacCallum on October 6th, 1914, from Canoe Lake Station:
"the best I can do does not do the place much justice in the way of beauty."
The best that a professional photographer using modern equipment can do also does not do justice to Tom's art. One needs to see the real thing and feel the brushwork in the gallery...
Dr. MacCallum also appreciated this nocturnal painting and included it within his compilation of Thomson's work. That collection was a bequest to the people of Canada in 1944. We all benefit from Dr. MacCallum's generosity and appreciation of fine and unique art. As an interesting aside, A.Y. Jackson asserted that MacCallum didn’t know much about art and was "limited to finding animal shapes in Thomson’s paintings." In any event, Dr. MacCallum knew what he liked and that is enough just to appreciate art.
The contributions of my Thomson friend were essential in locating this weather observation on Grand Lake. The insightful editorial observations also made this a much better post. Thank you, my friend!
Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,
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...
PSSS: Thank you for making it this far! If this post assists others in discovering the wonders of the moon, where to find it in the night sky and what that means, then the effort spent putting this together is paid in full.
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