Tom Thomson's Sunset and Shore, September 1916 TT-Post 118

DRAFT - Work in progress...

Diana and Bob McElroy were the inspiration behind this post, based on Tom Thomson's "Sunset and Shore" painted around September 14th, 1916, at about 6:30 pm EST. Tom was standing very near N45.867227° W-77.758100°, looking roughly toward 275 degrees (westerly) from the sandy and rocky point 270 feet west of the Out-Side-In. An autumn weather system was crossing Achray on the shore of Grand Lake. A thunderstorm might have passed just to the north of the Out-Side-In the previous hour. Most of the weather would pass north of Achray while the cold frontal passage and subsequent clearing were only an hour away.

Boots on the ground are essential to understanding the true story. The explanation of how we can know all of the above details more than 110 years after the event will follow.  The meteorology of this painting is beautiful, but that science has been explained before in several different posts. Sunset, an approaching weather system, and the story written clearly in the sky are always intriguing. The fact that Thomson recorded the weather clues in his wild brushstrokes and colours is frankly phenomenal. Art can bring meaning to life, but of course, that is only my opinion.

The important background story can only be discovered in the details and location accurately provided by Diana and Bob. Those specifics can only be found by going to the place where Thomson painted and witnessing those clues in person. That takes time and dedication, not to mention passion for the adventure. 

Diana and Bob are in the same league of art explorers as my friends Jim and Sue Waddington. I touched on their story in "The McElroys to the rescue - Tom Thomson's Petawawa Gorges; Night 1916" along with several other posts. The combined efforts of these teams are required to really appreciate the magic that was Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. 

The painting location for "Sunset and Shore" was determined to within a few feet. The photographic evidence accumulated by Diana and Bob is irrefutable. They even investigated the Algonquin Parks archive to historically substantiate their findings and to place the results within the context that was also Thomson's. 

The following post will rely mainly on graphics and pictures to tell the story. That will save a lot of words and maybe even make the tale more interesting. 

The graphic below links the landmarks in Thomson's painting to features in the 1925 Algonquin Archival photograph. 

Another archival image reveals the distant hills in the right portion of Thomson's painting. 

A century of forest recovery can mask the landscape that Thomson painted in 1916. The trees can disguise the features that Tom witnessed.

A top-down view can provide a better lay-of-the-land perspective. 

Diana and Bob McElroy's meticulous investigations on several trips to Achray revealed the exact painting location for Tom Thomson's "Sunset and Shore". The location alone would have been sufficient to establish the 1916 date of this work. The year was also included on the edge of the panel where the painting slid in and out of Tom's paint box. Tom only painted around Achray in 1916 when he was employed as a fire ranger. His art was insufficient to make a living. Vincent Van Gogh, the Dutch "Thomson", also experienced similar experiences. 

Now is where the meteorology and science can be fully applied with confidence of place and direction of view. 

Altocumulus castellanus cloud is characteristic of mid-level air mass instability. The favoured location of these clouds and the swells is with the cyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt of an approaching weather system. These details are included in a top-down view of a typical mid-latitude weather system. The jet stream provides the energy to fuel and steer the storm. 

The lack of wind gravity waves within the swells further substantiates the above conclusion. The following graphic depicts the portion of the weather system that Tom would have been viewing from his earthbound perspective. 

The final bit of detective work is based purely on the sun! Only the bottoms of the clouds above Diana's “lone skinny dead tree at the right end of the point" are illuminated by the sun. Three very deliberate strokes of brighter, yellow oils were applied only to the bottoms of those altocumulus clouds stretching along the deformation zone. Thomson's powers of observation were remarkable, and his intentional inclusion of these details in his painting allows us to complete the Creative Scene Investigation. 

The sun had to be below the horizon. If one scales Tom's painting to the appropriate size to match the features in Google Earth provided by the Airbus, one can calculate that Tom's viewing angle to the sun was 275 degrees. From Tom's 1916 painting location of N45.867227 W-77.758100, the sun is visible at that angle only on March 29, 1916 (Spring occurrence) or September 14, 1916 (Autumn occurrence). We know that Tom did not report for his fire ranging job until May of 1916. The colours of the foliage in Tom's painting are also more characteristic of autumn. The conclusion is that Tom was painting at sunset around September 14th, 1916. Sunset on that date and at that location was at 6:24 pm EST. 

If we make allowances for "Artistic Licence" and allow for the sun to actually be 2 degrees to the left or to the right of Diana's srawny dead tree, the likely limits of the plein air painting can be set as:

Earliest September 6, 1916 with a sunset time: 6:25 PM EST to

Latest September 19, 1916 with a sunset time: 6:09 PM EST. 

I also asked my colleague Johnny Lade to have a look at this painting as if he were making a weather observation. Known to his students as "Johnny Met", he has a lifetime of experience observing the actual weather. Johnny nailed this observation since Thomson painted exactly what he saw. John was unaware of the time, location and any direction of view but observed: 

"Tom displayed a beautiful sunset in this painting. It is almost twilight time with the sun low on the horizon, allowing the colours of orange and red."

These thoughts are consistent with all of the preceding remarks. I was hoping he might have mentioned the possible thunderstorm. 

Thus, the CSI conclusion has been reached:

• Tom Thomson's "Sunset and Shore" was painted around September 14th, 1916 at about 6:30 pm EST. 
• Tom was looking toward 275 degrees (westerly) from the sandy/rocky point 270 feet west of the Out-Side-In on the Grand Lake shore of Achray, very near N45.867227° W-77.758100°. 
• An autumn weather system was crossing Grand Lake, and a thunderstorm might have passed just to the north of the Out-Side-In the previous hour. 
• The cold front and dry slot would soon pass Achray, followed by clearing and cooler temperatures.

Tom might have been alerted to the weather and the painting opportunity by the thunderstorm passing just to the north of Achray. Viewing the colours in the sunset sky would have been enough impetus for him to grab his plein air kit and head out to the point to paint. 

I remain amazed and gratified by the considerable amount of dedicated effort and investigation into the art of Tom Thomson. Countless individuals like Diana and Bob McElroy, with broad ranges of expertise and experience, contribute unique insights into the art of Thomson. It would be a pity not to share this information with the larger art community. The art of Tom Thomson still helps to define the social fabric of Canada. We are all in this together, attempting to learn each day. 

Harris and MacDonald, pictured below, did their very best to catalogue the art of their friend. Unfortunately, due to World War One, they were unable to accompany him for many of the works they documented from Thomson's Shack in the spring of 1918. Those bold panels were all very "cold cases," at least a couple of years old to Harris and MacDonald. They were assigning titles, dates, locations, and other information as best they could. MacDonald had never been to Algonquin, which made the effort especially challenging. Viewing Thomson's final sketches would have been emotional for his friends, who were certainly still grieving from his loss. 

The details of any Inscriptions and the Provenance for Thomson's "Sunset and Shore" are limited compared to Thomson's other paintings. Dr. MacCallum, Thomson's main patron, somehow acquired this work. 

• Artist: Tom Thomson 
• Title: Untitled (Sunset and Shore)
• Date: 1916
• Materials: oil on wood
• Dimensions: 21.4 x 26.7 cm
• Credit line: Bequest of Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto, 1944
• Accession number: 4707v

The National Gallery of Canada's Acquisition Number "4707v" is in the same order of magnitude as the other bequests of Dr. J.M. MacCallum, which occurred in 1944, a year after his passing. 

How I would have enjoyed being able to view the entire surface of this Tom Thomson without the large acquisition sticker! There are good reasons for most decisions, but there must be a better way than a big, bold label.  

As with other Thomson paintings, "Untitled (Sunset and Shore)" does not come close to describing the subject or the motivation for Tom's efforts. Harris and MacDonald did manage to correctly identify this as a sunset work! One goal of these posts is to provide details on what might have been Tom's real reason for picking up his brushes. 

"Sunset and Shore" as it would have
 appeared in Thomson's Paint Box

The stringer of large trout highlighted in the Algonquin Archival images symbolizes the bounty of nature still readily available in Thomson’s days. Nature held the promise of an apparently unlimited wealth to be harvested for free in the waterways and forests. The stump with twisted roots on the Achray point symbolizes the remains of the forest that had been clear-cut. Tom included it in his plein air painting simply because it was there. Clearly, such reaping of nature was not sustainable. 

Tom Thomson was possibly an early environmentalist, seeing the beauty of nature and documenting the frenzied harvesting of those precious resources.

The powerful and wealthy industrialists of that day did not comprehend where their deeds would lead just a century later.  Ironically, Francis Molina’s article Remarkable Weather of 1911: The Effect of the Combustion of Coal on the Climate — What Scientists Predict for the Future was published just a month before the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912. The Titanic was recklessly travelling at its maximum service speed of 22 knots despite receiving multiple warnings of ice bergs in the area. Remarkable arrogance... or just ignorance? The Titanic might have enjoyed a long career of service if only the captain had heeded the iceberg warnings that had been posted. I cover that story in #3034 "Fiddler's Elbow Wildfire Sunset".

Thomson’s art was only understood and appreciated by a very select few in his day. Ronald Pittaway's interview with Tom Thomson's Mowat Lodge friend, Daphne Crombie on January 14th, 1977 included the following: 

“At that time, they were terribly criticized and it was said that these paintings were alright to hang in the kitchen.”

How the world has changed since then and how that self-destructive course might have been corrected if people only appreciated the nature of Tom's art and the environment that produced it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this...

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick, Tom Thomson Post TT-118

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date.