Английская Википедия:Artistic development of Tom Thomson
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Further Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Use Canadian English
Tom Thomson (1877–1917) was a Canadian painter from the beginning of the 20th century. Beginning from humble roots, his development as a career painter was meteoric, only pursuing it seriously in the final years of his life. He became one of the foremost figures in Canadian art, leaving behind around 400 small oil sketches and around fifty larger works on canvas.
Beginning his career in 1902 as a graphic designer, he only began to paint seriously in 1912 at the age of 35. His skills developed as he ventured through Algonquin Park, sketching scenes that interested him. His creative peak came from 1914 until his untimely death in 1917. His art style progressed from sombre, grey scenes into brilliantly coloured exposés, characterized by rapid and thickly applied brushstrokes. His later works presage the advances seen by the Abstract Expressionist movement.
Materials and working method
Sketch to canvas
The artwork of Thomson is typically divided into two bodies: the first is made up of the small oil sketches on wood panels, of which there are around 400, and the second is of around fifty larger works on canvas.Шаблон:Sfnb The smaller sketches were typically done in the style of en plein air in "the North," primarily Algonquin Park, in the spring, summer and fall.Шаблон:Sfnb The larger canvases were instead completed over the winter in Thomson's studio—an old utility shack with a wood-burning stove on the grounds of the Studio Building, an artist's enclave in Rosedale, Toronto.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Although he sold few of the larger paintings during his lifetime, they formed the basis of posthumous exhibitions, including one at Wembley in London, that eventually brought international attention to his work,Шаблон:Sfnb though the more plentiful sketches have typically been thought of as the core of his work.Шаблон:Sfnb
He considered most of his sketches to be complete works in themselves and not studies for larger works, since in the transition to a larger canvas the works lose their characteristic intimacy.Шаблон:Sfnb Still, a dozen or so of the major canvases were directly derived from smaller sketches. Indeed, paintings like Northern River, Spring Ice, The Jack Pine and The West Wind were only later expanded into larger oil paintings.Шаблон:Sfnb While the sketches were produced quickly, the canvases were developed over weeks or even months. Because of this, they display an "inherent formality," with the transition from small to large requiring a reinvention or elaboration of the original details.Шаблон:Sfnb In this transition he often exaggerated hillsides or other landscape features to give the final picture greater depth.Шаблон:Sfnb Comparing sketches with their respective canvases allows one to see the changes Thomson made in colour, detail and background textural patterns.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb
Materials
In 1914 Thomson made himself a sketch box to hold 8½ × 10½ inch (21.6 × 26.7 cm) panels.Шаблон:Sfnb The lower half of the box served as a palette, while the upper half served as a support for canvas or wood panels. Slots made room for three paintings to be carried at any given time, keeping them apart so wet paint did not smear or flatten.Шаблон:Sfnb Thomson utilized different materials throughout his career, providing a method for dating paintings.Шаблон:Sfnb For example, the wood panels he used in 1914 developed vertical cracks.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb He had only occasionally used hard wood-pulp board in 1914, but consistently began using it in 1915.Шаблон:Sfnb In the spring and fall of 1915 he used terra cotta-coloured and carnation-coloured paint as sealers, but by 1916 he had switched to ochre paint.Шаблон:Sfnb In the spring of 1917 he disassembled and cut up wood crates to make into 5 × 7 inch (12.7 × 17.8 cm) panels for sketching,Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb smaller than those he normally painted on and requiring tighter handling.Шаблон:Sfnb Fragments of brand names (e.g. Gold Medal Purity Flour, California Oranges) are stamped on the back of some,Шаблон:Sfnb such as Birches and An Ice Covered Lake.Шаблон:Sfnb During the same spring he reused around one-third of his sketches, either because he was not satisfied with them or because he was short on painting materials.Шаблон:Sfnb
In 2000, a study was conducted to understand the materials and working method of Thomson.Шаблон:Sfnb In 2002–03, before a travelling exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canadian Conservation Institute utilized infrared and X-ray photography, spectroscopy and micro-sampling of pigments to further analyze many of Thomson's paintings.Шаблон:Sfnb Sandra Webster-Cook and Anne Ruggles described in their research how Thomson applied differently coloured primers in various parts of his paintings to give them subtle yet important qualities.Шаблон:Sfnb
Photography
Thomson occasionally used photography to capture things that gained his interest, such as fish he caught, images of his friends or the landscape. He does not seem to have used any of his photographs for producing art, with none of the extant photos corresponding to any of his paintings.Шаблон:Sfnb He instead preferred to capture images with small oil sketches, and nearly all of the works he produced are among these small sketches.Шаблон:Sfnb David Silcox however has speculated that Drowned Land (and perhaps other paintings) may have been painted with a photograph as a memory aid given their "uncanny precision."Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Efn
In 1912 while travelling up the Spanish River in the Mississagi area with William Broadhead, Thomson lost at least a dozen rolls of film (claiming in a letter that he lost 14 dozen) along with many more sketches after their canoe experienced several spills.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb He had intended to bring the images back to Grip Limited and use them in his commercial work.Шаблон:Sfnb
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A lake in Southern Ontario, III, Шаблон:Circa. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
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Scarborough Bluffs, II, Шаблон:Circa. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
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Double exposure: northern lake, I, Шаблон:Circa. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
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Two trout hanging from the tent pole, Шаблон:Circa. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
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Miss Winifred Trainor, II, Шаблон:Circa 1913-17. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
Developments
Commercial art
Tom Thomson's first foray into art came in 1901 with his education at Canada Business College in Chatham, Ontario. It was there that he developed rudimentary penmanship abilities.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb By 1902, he had been hired in Seattle at the design firm Maring & Ladd, working as a pen artist, draftsman and etcher.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb His main work there consisted in producing business cards, brochures and posters, as well as three-colour printing.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Having previously learned calligraphy, he specialized in lettering, drawing and painting.Шаблон:Sfnb Thomson may have also worked as a freelance commercial designer, but there are no extant examples of such work to confirm these suspicions.Шаблон:Sfnb He was greatly influenced by the black and white illustrations he saw in magazines,Шаблон:Sfnb something especially apparent in his Шаблон:Circa sketch, Study of a Woman's Head, which draws inspiration from the "Gibson Girl" of American illustrator Charles Dana Gibson.Шаблон:Sfnb Thomson's younger brother Ralph wrote about Thomson during this period:
After returning to Toronto, Thomson joined the artistic design firm Grip Ltd. in either 1908 or 1909.Шаблон:Efn The firm specialized in design and lettering work.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Grip was the leading graphic design company in the country and introduced Art Nouveau, metal engraving and the four-colour process to Canada.Шаблон:Sfnb Albert Robson, then the art director at Grip, recalled that when he first hired Thomson, "his samples consisted mostly of lettering and decorative designs applied to booklet covers and some labels."Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb
The techniques he learned regarding Art Nouveau became apparent in many of his later works,Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb including paintings like Northern River; Decorative Landscape, Birches; Spring Ice and The West Wind.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Of particular note are the sinuous forms typical within the art style,Шаблон:Sfnb seen in the "S-curves" of the trees which have their origins in Thomson's work as a draughtsman.Шаблон:Sfnb Fellow artist A. Y. Jackson affirmed the Group of Seven's tendency towards using Art Nouveau styles within their work, writing that, "We (the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson) treated our subjects with the freedom of designers. We tried to emphasize colour, line and pattern."Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb
The senior artist at Grip, J. E. H. MacDonald, encouraged his staff to paint outside in their spare time to better hone their skills.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb MacDonald had perhaps the largest influence on Thomson's career as a painter; he enticed Thomson away from the commercial field and brought him towards painting through not only the encouraged weekend outdoor sketching, but through painting trips on holidays and introducing him to his fellow artists.Шаблон:Sfnb MacDonald himself credited William Broadhead with Thomson's emergence as a painter, writing in a letter to Arthur Lismer that "My memories in connection with Tom seem to begin with B[roadhead]."Шаблон:Sfnb In a draft of an article, Harold Mortimer-Lamb similarly credited Broadhead with Thomson's emergence.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Lismer took exception to their claims, instead crediting MacDonald.Шаблон:Sfnb A. Y. Jackson also expressed that Thomson's major development came after his ventures to Algonquin Park, rather than his time as a graphic designer.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Lismer later wrote, Шаблон:Quote
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Tom Thomson's business card, Шаблон:Circa. Tom Thomson Papers, Library and Archives Canada
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Decorative Landscape - Blessing by Robert Burns, Шаблон:Circa. Private collection.
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Advertisement for the Sydenham Mutual Fire Insurance, Owen Sound, 1910. Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound
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Near Owen Sound, November 1911. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Painting career
First ventures to Algonquin Park (1912–13)
It was in 1912 that Thomson's transition from commercial art towards his original style of painting became apparent.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb This transition appears to have been instigated by his first visit to Algonquin Park in May 1912.[1] He acquired his first sketching equipment,Шаблон:Sfnb but spent most of his trip fishing,Шаблон:Sfnb save for "a few notes, skylines and colour effects."Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Dating sketches to this trip has sometimes proved difficult.Шаблон:Sfnb One exception is the sketch Smoke Lake, Algonquin Park, easily dated because Thomson gave it to Bud Callighen around the time of their first meeting.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Charles Hill has also included the "somewhat awkward" Old Lumber Dam, Algonquin Park as likely being made during the trip.Шаблон:Sfnb Robson identified Drowned Land as being painted on the Mississagi Forest Reserve canoe trip.Шаблон:Sfnb Also dated to this time are The Canoe and A Northern Lake (1912).Шаблон:Sfnb
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Smoke Lake, Algonquin Park, Spring 1912. Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound
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Old Lumber Dam, Algonquin Park, Spring 1912. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
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The Canoe, Spring or fall 1912. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
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A Northern Lake, Spring or fall 1912. Camp Tanamakoon, Algonquin Park
In fall 1912 Thomson left Grip Ltd. to join another design firm, Rous & Mann.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Leonard Rossell went on to write, "Those who worked there were all allowed time off to pursue their studies... Tom Thomson, so far as a I know, never took definite lessons from anyone, yet he progressed quicker than any of us. But what he did was probably of more advantage to him. He took several months off in the summer and spent them in Algonquin Park."Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb
In October 1912 Thomson was first introduced to Dr. James MacCallum, a frequent visitor of the Ontario Society of Artists' (OSA) exhibitions and The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb MacCallum convinced Thomson to leave his position at Rous and Mann and commit to a career in painting.Шаблон:Sfnb Lawren Harris later recalled Thomson's major developments around this time:
MacCallum offered to cover Thomson's expenses for a year on the promise that he fully committed himself to painting,Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb an offer Thomson eventually accepted after some initial hesitance.Шаблон:Sfnb MacCallum wrote that when he first saw Thomson's sketches, he recognized their "truthfulness, their feeling and their sympathy with the grim fascinating northland... they made me feel that the North had gripped Thomson as it had gripped me since I was eleven when I first sailed and paddled through its silent places." He further wrote that Thomson's paintings were "dark, muddy in colour, tight and not wanting in technical defects."Шаблон:Sfnb
Thomson's ventures to the wilderness of Ontario were major sources of inspiration in his art, writing in a letter to MacCallum that the beauty of Algonquin Park was indescribable.Шаблон:Sfnb His early works, such as Northern Lake (1912–13) and Evening were not outstanding technically, yet they illustrate a particular talent for composition and colour handling.Шаблон:Sfnb The sale of the former to the Ontario Government in March 1913 for $250 (Шаблон:Inflation) allowed him to spend more time in the summer and fall of 1913 sketching.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb MacCallum described the painting as a "picture [of] one of the small northern lakes swept by a north west wind; a squall just passing from the far shore, the water crisp, sparkingly blue & broken into short, white-caps—a picture full of light, life and vigour."Шаблон:Sfnb Thomson's sketches from 1913 are often grey, but display greater colour handling than that seen in the earlier sketch of Northern Lake.Шаблон:Sfnb Most of these sketches are simple with a far off shore.Шаблон:Sfnb Canvases like Morning Cloud and Moonlight use broken brushwork, a technique he likely learned from MacDonald and Jackson.Шаблон:Sfnb
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Northern Lake, Winter 1912–13. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
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Autumn, Algonquin Park, Fall 1913. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
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Morning Cloud, Winter 1913-14. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
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Moonlight, Winter 1913-14. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Colour and experimentation (1914–15)
Thomson often experienced self-doubt, with A. Y. Jackson recalling that in the fall of 1914, Thomson threw his sketch box into the woods out of frustration,Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb and was "so shy he could hardly be induced to show his sketches."Шаблон:Sfnb While his work from this period still displays "a certain awkwardness," Thomson surpassed his colleagues Jackson and Lismer in his brilliance of colour.Шаблон:Sfnb In a letter to MacCallum, Jackson wrote,
The sketches produced in 1915 display his increasing tendency towards experimentation and his sensitivity to colour,Шаблон:Sfnb experimenting with texture and colour in ways that his earlier subdued and precise work had avoided.Шаблон:Sfnb Beyond his work as a colourist, he developed a technique of presenting contradictory ideas that were simultaneously resolved within the same image. Typically he accomplished this by using the techniques of both Tonalism and Post-Impressionism, later achieving it by joining decorative patterns with bold handling.Шаблон:Sfnb Jackson wrote regarding this period of Thomson's work, "No longer handicapped by literal representation, he was transposing, eliminating, designing, experimenting, finding happy colour motives amid tangle and confusion and [reveling] in paint. The amount of work he did was incredible."Шаблон:Sfnb
Over the 1915–16 winter in Toronto, Thomson produced several canvases, including In the Northland; The Birch Grove, Autumn; Autumn's Garland; Opulent October and Spring Ice. The sketches of his work display a two-dimensionality. Thomson's work from this period—like the works of Harris, Lismer and MacDonald—became more decorative. The colour is heightened, with spaces flattened and forms arranged into vertical bands. The branches and trunks of trees are more stylized in nature.Шаблон:Sfnb
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Soft Maple in Autumn, Fall 1914. Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound
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Tamaracks, Fall 1914. Private collection
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Approaching Snowstorm, Fall 1915. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
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Algonquin Park, Fall 1915. Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound
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Forest, October, Fall 1915. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Creative peak (1916–17)
Шаблон:Further Шаблон:See also
In 1916, Thomson left for Algonquin Park earlier than any previous year, evidenced by the large number of snow studies he produced at this time.Шаблон:Sfnb He produced many sketches which varied in composition, though they all had vivid colour and were applied thickly.Шаблон:Sfnb Over the following winter, encouragement from Harris, MacDonald and MacCallum saw Thomson move into the most productive portion of his career,Шаблон:Sfnb writing in a letter that he "got quite a lot done."Шаблон:Sfnb It was during this time that he produced many of what became his most famous works, including The Jack Pine and The West Wind.Шаблон:Sfnb
In the last two years of his life especially, Thomson was particularly skilled in observing atmospheric phenomena, such as temperature, humidity, wind and light.Шаблон:Sfnb Work from this period—such as The Rapids—demonstrate his adeptness at controlling colour and are painted with a particular "crispness and freshness."Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:Sfnb Other paintings—such as Path Behind Mowat Lodge and Tea Lake Dam—illustrate his bold and expressive brushstrokes.Шаблон:Sfnb The scale of Thomson's later canvases foreshadow the Algoma canvases the members of the Group of Seven painted after the war.Шаблон:Sfnb Art historians David Silcox and Harold Town have described this period of Thomson's art as moving in the direction of abstraction.Шаблон:SfnbШаблон:SfnbШаблон:Efn
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Winter Thaw in the Woods, Fall 1916. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
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Autumn, Three Trout, Fall 1916. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
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Spring Flood, Spring 1917. McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg
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The Rapids, Spring 1917. Private collection
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Northern Lights, Spring 1917. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Approaching abstraction
Thomson was prolific in the number of sketches he produced—over four hundred across his entire career—providing an opportunity to observe the trends and progression of his style. Starting as a landscape painter, he drew away from typical landscape convention and began to experiment with more excited brushstrokes, clashing paint and more vibrant colours.Шаблон:Sfnb For artist and Thomson biographer Harold Town, the brevity of Thomson's career hinted at an artistic evolution never fully realized. He cites the 1916 oil painting Unfinished Sketch as "the first completely abstract work in Canadian art," a painting that, whether or not it was intended as a purely non-objective work, presages the innovations of abstract expressionism.Шаблон:Sfnb Town describes the contents of the painting as being a sky that expresses the frustration Thompson must have experienced in adding paint to the small areas between trees, rocks and thickets.Шаблон:Sfnb He similarly describes Late Autumn as being another "impatient study" that led to abstract experiment. Of particular importance are the areas between the branches, which are "brusquely smacked into place," as well as a similar foreground to that of Unfinished Sketch.Шаблон:Sfnb
David Silcox has pointed to Cranberry Marsh as indicating Thomson's move towards abstraction.Шаблон:Sfnb He has also viewed After the Storm, likely one of Thomson's last paintings, as an indication that Thomson was already responding to the changes happening in Western art, even if he didn't exactly know where it would lead.Шаблон:Sfnb Examining the painting more closely, the landscape itself dissolves into bare strokes and pure abstraction.Шаблон:Sfnb
Art historian Joan Murray has expressed reluctance to describe Thomson's sketches as "abstract," given that some of them may have likely been intended as "colour notes for use in the studio," and because some of the sketches were unfinished.Шаблон:Sfnb
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Late Autumn, Fall 1915. McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg
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Sketch for Autumn's Garland, Fall 1915. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
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Cranberry Marsh, Summer 1916. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
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Algonquin Hillside, Snow, Fall 1916. Private collection
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After the Storm, Summer 1917. Private collection
References
Footnotes
Citations
Sources
Шаблон:Refbegin Primary sources
- Шаблон:Cite archive
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Шаблон:Tom Thomson Шаблон:Group of Seven Шаблон:Canadian art
