Tom Thomson

Recommendations

Info

Tom Thomson Life & Work by David P. Silcox LEFT: Tom Thomson, Decorative Panel (II), 1915–16, oil on beaverboard, 120.8 x 96.4 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa RIGHT: Tom Thomson, Decorative Landscape: Birches, 1915–16, oil on canvas, 77.1 x 72.1 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa An Idiosyncratic Palette As Thomson learned the basics, he quickly began to experiment. He tried different kinds of pigments, such as Freeman’s white lead, a purewhite composite that his colleagues hardly used at all. He experimented with the composition or structure of each painting—and rarely repeated a pattern. More striking was his idiosyncratic palette, his manner of mixing available pigments to make unusual new colours, as in Pine Trees at Sunset, 1915, with its radiant acid-green and yellow sunset, and Cranberry Marsh, 1916, where its field of brilliant light resembles burning sunshine. His patron Dr. James MacCallum thought him “the greatest colourist of the Algonquin School” (as Thomson and his artist friends were initially referred to). Even more surprising is how Thomson makes unreal colours stand in for what was actually there: a bluish-pink to represent snow in Tom Thomson’s sketch box, Study Collection, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Early Snow, Algonquin Park, 1916, a deep teal-lapis lazuli-greenish-blue for a patch of 72
Tom Thomson Life & Work by David P. Silcox swamp water in Cranberry Marsh, a yellowish-green arc in the sky above a violent red sunset in Sunset, 1915. Thomson’s control of colour is exceptional, a mark of his growing success and confidence. Moreover, his colours and his brushwork are instantly recognizable and as personal as a fingerprint, regardless of the subject or the season he tackles. In the majority of his sketches, Thomson uses fairly short, energetic, and abrupt strokes, with a few gentle arcs added as final touches. The direction of his brush is expressive: in The Pointers, 1916–17, the strokes are mostly horizontal in the water and the sky, but vertical on the hills. By the last year of his life, however, Thomson was punching his colours onto his panels in all directions with a vigorous brush, as in his sketch After the Storm, 1917. This aggressive but intense kind of painting is indicative of Thomson’s transition from illustration or representation to a form of expression that was starting to border on Abstract Expressionism. But, like David Milne (1881–1953), Emily Carr (1871–1945), and others of his generation, Thomson didn’t advance far enough to relinquish representation entirely, even though he was moving in that direction. Tom Thomson, Tea Lake Dam, 1917, oil on wood panel, 21.3 x 26.2 cm, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario. With effective brushstrokes, Thomson captures the buildup of storm clouds above as the waters of the Muskoka River flow over the chute in the spring 73
Page 1 and 2:
1 Tom Thomson Life & Work by David
Page 3 and 4:
Tom Thomson Life & Work by David P.
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22: Tom Thomson Life & Work by David P.
Page 71: Tom Thomson Life & Work by David P.
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127:
show all

Tom Thomson

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?