Tom Thomson

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Tom Thomson Life & Work by David P. Silcox Tom Thomson, Pine Trees at Sunset, 1915 Oil on board, 26.7 x 21 cm Private collection, Calgary One of the reasons Pines Trees at Sunset is special is because it is firmly related to The Jack Pine, 1916–17, one of Thomson’s greatest canvases. He painted The Jack Pine during the winter after he had earlier sketched this luminous sunset. The three scraggly, silhouetted pines with their clumps of branches, surrounded by young-growth trees, are set against a gorgeous and arresting sky. Here Thomson lays out not only the parameters of the colour scheme he uses in The Jack Pine but, to some extent, the composition as well. The colours used in the sky —an orangey-yellow worthy of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)—thickly and frenetically applied, slowly give way at the top of the painting to a strangely acidic green. The surface of the water reflects the sky. Without doubt, this sketch must have been much in Thomson’s mind when he painted The Jack Pine. In this relatively rare vertical oil sketch, Thomson captures the transition as day slides toward night in the North. Thomson was drawn to these dramatic events— sunsets, dawns, rainbows, lightning, thunderclouds, breaking storms, first snow, frost, and ice on trees—along with the northern lights, migratory flights of geese, the spring melting of river ice, a marsh baking under a hot summer sun, and logs tumbling downstream. These subjects from nature were at the core of Thomson’s thought and creation. He focused on presenting his experiences with the natural world and on conveying his reactions to it. He did this in a way that reflected the sensibilities of the period in which he lived. As he gained experience and skill, he increasingly stretched the boundaries of the painting conventions he had learned. Fire-Swept Hills 1915 Tom Thomson, Moonlight, c. 1913–14, oil on board, 26.4 x 21.6 cm, private collection. Here, in a vertical sketch of similar size, Thomson captures another natural event – the tranquil beauty of a moonlit night 30
Tom Thomson Life & Work by David P. Silcox Fire-Swept Hills 1915 Tom Thomson, Fire-Swept Hills, 1915 Oil on composite wood-pulp board, 23.2 x 26.7 cm The Thomson Collection, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto This agitated and chaotically messy elegy to what was once a mature forest illustrates powerfully an unexpected aspect of Thomson’s paintings in Algonquin Park: his reaction to the land after fire has swept through and ravaged it. Along with about ten other sketches, including Burned Over Land, 1916, Burnt Area with Ragged Rocks, 1915, Burnt-Over Forest, 1916, Burnt Land at Sunset, 1915, and Burnt Country, Evening, 1914, it refutes any idea that Thomson found only idyllic peace, beauty, and uplifting scenes to paint there. As the painting spills out from the high, distant horizon point between two hills, the charred spindles of trees standing precariously like lifeless skeletons remind viewers constantly of fire and destruction. In the lower half, a tumble of paint crashes over rocks and more burnt trunks and branches like a wild cataract. Blood reds, blues, ash greys, 31
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Tom Thomson

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