TOM THOMSON'S PAINTINGS REVEALED THE ART OF NATURE -
HIS INTIMACY WITH THE WILDS OF ONTARIO, GAVE HIM THE ADVANTAGE OF A FOLKLORIST
Pausing momentarily, to admire one of Tom Thomson's art panels, on exhibit, depicting a lakeland scene in Algonquin, the voyeur can so effortlessly drift off into the enchantment the artist has woven for our capture. His art-work, like the spider's web, compels us to get closer, and listen more intently, and sense it all so thoroughly, that we soon become intimate with its silken web. But we don't wish to escape right away, from the enlightenment we have been thusly privileged to possess.
We can hear the wind in Thomson paintings; the deep gurgle of canoe paddle twisting and gouging in the black depths of a deep pool. Smell the evergreen forest and the aroma of the thick bullrushes, and the black Algonquin muck that clings to the paddle, as if a life form on the rise. Thomson invites us to join in, as he promptly re-discovers the intricacies of a most perplexing nature; it's moods and folklore surround us, as if we have just now fallen into the lake, to witness life at its point of origin. It is cool and refreshing, and we are alerted gently to our own mortality, and its frailties, as we then try to separate the impression, the strange fiction, from the actuality, we find to the contrary, we are viewing a painting from a safe distance.
We have just now returned from a lengthy and enjoyable motor-trip, through the central region of the District of Muskoka, as we insist of ourselves at least once a month throughout the rolling year. Most often working seven days a week, in our antique business, this time of year, it is quite rare to be able to secure at least half a day, to reconnect with our home district, and occasionally, re-visit our favorite retreat up in Algonquin Park. We don't open our Gravenhurst shop on Sundays, because it's the one day of the week, we have to head out on our picking expeditions, in order to replenish our inventory. Today was just too nice to be mixing it with commerce. We'll double-up on our chores next week. What we got to experience out there, well, we now feel restored.
Working this past week, on the Tom Thomson story, for both this facebook page, and my blog, I have once again succumbed to that feeling, we're missing way too much of the good life, of living in this beautiful part of the world. We love our work, hunting and gathering antiques, and we definitely enjoy operating our shop on the main street of Gravenhurst. But we also can't afford to miss days like this either, hustling from venue to venue, loading and unloading big cupboards, and small, heavy dressers, with big mirrors, and lengthy harvest tables we really don't need. Although, as I have explained previously, we always stop on these adventures to enjoy the sights, and have numerous stops for picnics, and to purchase treats from roadside stands, it's not always enough to satisfy our passion for what we consider, the really, really good life. It reminds us how long it has been since we paddled a canoe, and sat beside the campfire looking out over the lake. Writing about Tom Thomson over the past few days, has once again, as it always does, reminded me of the many summer and autumn weekends, our family would camp on the shore of Tea or Rock Lakes; how many traverses we made of Canoe Lake, and then, on both Rock and Whitefish Lakes, further east. In these situations, Suzanne and I, and our sons when they travelled with us, felt restored of spirit, as if it was a visual, sensory tonic, and we had been running on empty right up to the park gate. We'd sit down along the shore, of the campgrounds we were going to be pitching our tents, and honestly, we responded to our natural environment like sponges sopping up water. Today felt much the same. Here we live permanently in God's country, and we work as if it is a city-bred existence. It's only paradise if you enjoy it as such!
I am sitting out on the verandah, that looks down on a small portion of The Bog across the lane, and the birds are chirping madly, and the hummingbird has been enjoying nectar from the feeder directly in front of where I am writing today's introduction. Today I am seeing nature as Tom Thomson did, and it is spectacular. How much we miss in our harried lives, passing through this bountiful landscape, with our ears attached to cell phones, and absorbed by work-expectations for the day. The panorama in front of me now, isn't as dramatic as Thomson's painting of the Tea Lake dam, as windswept as The West Wind, and not as moody and precarious as The Jack Pine, but it is full of neighborhood folklore, and I am happily, its artist today. There are the chirping voices of youngsters playing tag, somewhere to the east of Birch Hollow, and there is a mother and child ambling down the lane at this moment, chasing butterflies with small nets, but having very little success at their mission. Several residents out for an afternoon stroll, stop to chat with the butterfly hunters, and a cyclist passing, nearly falls off her bike, trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. A mother Thrasher has just fed her chubby offspring a fat worm, on the maple branch, just to my left, and another moth has lost its fight for survival, caught in the spider's web, fanning across the corner of the verandah. I screwed up the balance of nature I suppose, but I set it free to the spider's chagrin.
It is a soft, gentle, soothing respite, but I know this as living art, and of this, I am a willing subject. If I was to suddenly expire, sitting here, while enjoying this view, and all the attributes of the hinterland of The Bog, then I would only insist, I be allowed to wander it in the afterlife, as the wayward, friendly spirit-kind. Just as some Thomson admirers, sense the artist's spirit is subtly embedded, in each of his art panels, he painted for our enlightenment. I shall never leave this place, in this life or another. I am not an artist, so writing this confession, will have to suffice.
TOM THOMSON TREASURES - IN PRINT - BUT I'D REALLY LIKE ONE OF HIS ART PANELS TOO
MY TWO MOST SIGNIFICANT BOOKS ON CANADIAN LANDSCAPE ARTIST, TOM THOMSON, PUBLISHED IN THE 1930'S
Tom Thomson was as intense a human being, as the tumultuous weather her depicted, etching down over the Algonquin Lakes. He liked to get close to the storm-fronts, and friends in his company, noted of the artist, that he would suddenly become silent and withdrawn, when a system moved over the Algonquin lakes. He studied it, almost as if it possessed a spirit within, that he wanted to understand.
I awoke, rather pleasantly, to the bright, penetrating sunlight, of a bitterly cold January morning, here in the ever-alluring wilds of South Muskoka. The sharp, loud and frequent ice cracks, of this minus twenty-five morning, were the reports that actually stirred me from my long winter's nap. I could hear more snaps well off in the distance, in the adjacent woodlands of Birch Hollow. Birds were vying for a place at the feeder, and others were chirping as if it was a summer morning instead. I looked out and thought to myself, it was what I call, a "Tom Thomson morning." What I mean by this, is that Thomson, had he been alive to companion this view with me, out over The Bog, with its criss-crossing animal pathways, might have found reason to make a sketch for posterity; possibly a painting of the frozen lowland, with its leaning old birches, and venerable evergreens, over the light and shadow of the sunscaped depression of the landscape. It was above all else, a picturesque winter panorama, with so much life and potential in the air; alluring one to wander the forest trails, trodden down by the nightly succession of deer, wolves, foxes, and dog walkers, out for a stroll in the moonlight.
I stayed in bed for a while longer, and thought about all those citizens of the world, who would not wake up to such an invigorating, hopeful scene like this; maybe hearing and seeing the flashes from missile explosions, pounding down on their neighborhoods. Maybe, even at this moment, in the Ukraine, Syria or Iraq. Fear and loathing permeates the impression of daily life, for millions of people on this planet, even on a good day, when, by considerable good fortune, they escape injury from shelling and terrorist attacks. I have always escaped from unpleasant realities, by immersing in either nature, or art work, that was inspired by wilderness experience. I don't take this view outside Birch Hollow this morning, for granted. I know better. When I sit down for my morning coffee, within earshot of the bird feeder, so busy this morning, I will inevitably dwell for awhile, on the scene out-of-doors, as I can see it from my chair; and then what is depicted by the artists, who I have companioned in our living room, to complete the experience. While at the same time, I am comforted by the luxuries of a warm, indoor space, with its inherent cottage inspirations.
In just over six months, it will be two years until the 100th anniversary, of the mysterious death of iconic Canadian landscape artist Tom Thomson, who is alleged to have drowned in Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake, in July 1917.
I will definitely be hosting a small but significant display, of some Thomson memorabilia we possess, from books, to the tenor banjo he may have owned, and sketched upon, now owned by my son Andrew. Two of the rare books on Tom Thomson will also be on display, including the first major work on the artist, by well known Canadian author, Blodwen Davies, in 1930, entitled "Paddle and Palette," and the 1937 book, "Tom Thomson," written by fellow artist, Albert Robson, and published by the Ryerson Press, of Toronto, and designed by Rous & Mann of Toronto, the graphics company that employed many budding Canadian artists. Both books, by the way, and my signed copy of "The Tom Thomson Mystery," by Judge William Little, (from the early 1970's), which really got me interested in the circumstances surrounding the artist's death, were all purchased in Gravenhurst, apparently a hot bed for Thomson books.
As a sort of lead up, to the anniversary year, I plan to offer numerous feature series, from now until July 2017, and I thought it would be appropriate to commence, with a closer look at these two important books that, in print, paint a critical and insightful profile of the talented Mr. Thomson, and his rise to national recognition in Canada, in the years just before his death in 1917. It would be very rare indeed, to get a copy of either book, in good condition and for a reasonable price; but it's material that should be known about this important Canadian artist. I will start today's blog by looking at Blodwen Davies book, also printed by The Ryerson Press. I do believe this book was privately financed by the author, who was the first person, to contact police, to suggest that the information she had gathered, in preliminary interviews around the Canoe Lake community, in the late 1920's, indicated foul play was most likely the cause of Thomson's sudden death and violent death. Her meddling was not appreciated by some people in government, and even by members of the Group of Seven artists, Thomson had inspired before his death. The police did a cursory investigation, but nothing with the kind of depth, and scope, that was required to solve the inconsistencies between the Coroner's Inquest, which was highly flawed, and the hearsay evidence of area citizens; who also believed someone had it in for the budding Canadian artist.
The content of the books does not dwell, on Thomson's demise, but rather, on his exceptional contribution to the national art movement, in Canada, at the time. Seeing as they are both early accounts of the artist's life and work, I find them particularly honest and entirely trustworthy, as reference material in the present tense. So now, let's go back to Algonquin Park, and Canoe Lake, on this crisp, cold, snow-laden winter day, and relive the period in the late 1920's, when Blodwen Davies was conducting her Thomson interviews. Blodwen Davies, by the way, was assisted, in later years, with Thomson research, by Dr. Frederick Banting, also an accomplished artist. It is more than rumour actually, that Banting and Davies became intimately connected, in the years following the release of this book.
"Paddle and Palette," (The Story of Tom Thomson - by Blodwen Davies, 1930 )
"Through the story of painting in Canada there stalks a tall, lean trailsman, with his sketch box and his paddle, an artist and a dreamer who made the wilderness his cloister and there worshipped nature in her secret moods. Tom Thomson, in his brief dramatic career, painted the north as it had never been painted before, and bequeathed to his people not only a few great canvases glowing with a new vitality, a new consciousness, a new emotion. The time was ripe for fullfilment. In his day Canada was stirring with a new faith, and out of the urge that moved the sentiment of his era, the spirit of Tom Thomson manifested itself.
"The artist, who gave to the new Canadian faith its symbolism, was peculiarly a product of his own soil. In birth, up-bringing, training and achievement he owned everything to his own land. Less than four years of his life were spent outside the boundaries of his native province. Tom Thomson was born just outside the Village of Claremonet, twenty-eight miles east of Toronto, on the fourth of August, 1877, Claremont is an old settlement of families from the British Isles. It is a beautiful and a prosperous bit of country. Into this rolling land ninety odd years ago came Thomas Thomson of Aberdeen as a settler. He was strong and willing and shrewd and though he boasted that he had 'never filed threepenny worth of paper in any school,' he was a Scotsman of fine characteristics, ready wit and jovial disposition."
Blodwen Davies writes, "Thomas Thomson arrived in the days when a man worked a year in return for a yoke of oxen, and when wheat and pork were the only commodities exchanged for cash. Eventually Thomson secured a farm site and built a log cabin by the side of the road. In time he prospered, and moved back from the road, up a slope, and built a one-story stone house of the granite field stones which were only too plentiful round about. The house still stands, a solid, thick-walled little building with small paned windows, though it is no longer used as a dwelling. Thomas Thomson had a son, John Thomson, who grew up into a great broad-shouldered youth. John married a young woman named Margaret Mathewson, who was also of Scottish pioneer descent and whose father, a builder and contractor, had come up from Prince Edward Island to go into business in what was then usually called Upper Canada.
"For the young couple, Thomas built another stone house, rather similar in appearance, except that it was built upon a foundation and so stood a little higher off the ground. It was only a hundred yards or so from the parental home. It too, still stands (as of 1930), a charming little cottage of beautifully coloured stones. It was so well and so cleverly built that it is the curiosity and admiration of present-day masons. In this house, five children were born to the young Thomson's wife. Elizabeth Brodie, died, and was carried up the road to the burying ground in Claremont. In the following year, Thomas himself died, much to the regret of the countryside where the hard-muscled, loquacious little Scotsman was greatly beloved. Even today old men who knew him in their boyhood, break into chuckles as they recall 'Tommie,' Thomson, and his droll tales, or recount his feats of strength and good natured boastings. Among other things, the old man was a famous fisherman."
Blodwen Davies continues her background of the Thomson family, by noting, "Apparently only his parents had kept John Thomson rooted in Claremont. No sooner had the two old pioneers been laid together in their graves, than John became restive. He had his own blunt methods of approach to his problems, so when he wanted to look about for another farm, he put a few things, including a spade, into a buggy, hitched his horse and started to drive off northward, searching for land. When he came to a place that he liked, he got out, looked it over, turned over a few spadefuls of soil, and, unsatisfied, moved on. Finally he came to a spot at Leith, on Owen Sound, which satisfied him. It was beautifully wooded country, reaching down to a sheet of water that promised good fishing. John Thomson secured his land and went back to Clairmont. About that time his sixth child was born, a son, named for his grandfather, Thomas John Thomson. When the infant was two months old, the Thomsons and their young brood set out down the road from the stone farmhouse - a roadway now disused and overgrown - to the main highway, on their way, to the new home.
"So Tom Thomson made his first journey, in his mother's arms, toward the north country, of which he was to become priest and prophet. There, in the big red house at Leith, the infant was rocked in a cradle that still stands in the attic as a memento of its famous son. There he grew up into a sturdy little boy, then into a dream lad and at last, into a lanky, dark-eyed, truth-seeking man. Thomson's country, where he spent the impressionable years of his youth, is a beautiful country in any season. In winter, the countryside has at times the quality of an etching, for when the landscape is drained of colour under low clouds, it takes on all the delicacy of tones in black and white. The lacey elms, the delicate birches, the dark and friendly first fringing the skyline or filling in the hollows would naturally impress a sensitive imagination, such as Thomson's. Fields outlined in old fences give a natural design to hillsides and meadows and there are times when the snow falls soft as eider-down, and piles itself upon the shelf-like branches of the fir trees inches deep, unbelievably beautiful, taking on strange sculptural forms. Great fields, where the woodcutter has been at work, look like fantastic mushroom beds when the snow lies on every stump in a great tam o'shanter. Spring has a tremulous beauty in this windswept land. Against the dark and ancient greens of balsam and cedar and their kin of delicacy of early greens in accentuated. The northern spring is abundant and extravagant. It breaks its alabaster box with a recklessness that wipes out the memory of the winter's bleakness at a stroke. Great stores of energy, moribund for months, and suddenly unloosed. These were the months that Thomson always loved even in the days when his mother took him out with her to the maple woods on the farm."
Davies adds, that "Summer is intense. The waters of Owen Sound, and Georgian Bay beyond, are rich in colour, almost jewel-like, and the land full of contrasts. However, it is autumn that is the rarest season of the year in the north. The green trees yield pride of place to those that range from the yellow of new minted gold to the crimsons of old wines. Thomson passionately loved the northern autumns. The Thomson family was augmented to nine boys and girls, the three youngest having been born at leith. The father was a bit of an adventurer in his farming, testing and experimenting with seeds and bulbs, as he did till his death in September, 1930. The mother was a flower lover, fond of out-of-doors and never so busy but that she could drop the task in hand when unexpected visitors appeared. Seldom did any one leave her home without a bouquet of blossoms. Several of the children played musical instruments, and they spent many a happy evening together in the old living-room amusing themselves and each other. Some of the boys and girls liked to sketch. The homemaker who followed the Thomsons in the Leith farmhouse found the cellar door covered with pencil sketches.
"John Thomson had inherited his father's love of fishing, and from him the young Thomson lads at Leith, in turn, learned the ancient art. As a youth, Tom Thomson was not strong. His parents worried a little about him. They encouraged his love of outdoors and provided him with a dog and a gun, as well as his fishing tackle. So off he went by himself into the woods. He got close to the heart of the north even in those early days as he rambled about the beautiful Georgian Bay country. One by one the boys left home to make their ways in the world. John Thomson was obsessed with the idea that all who could, should live upon the land. But none of his sons adopted his ideas, through three of his daughters married farmers. Two sons et out for Seattle, one of the, George Thomson, going into partnership in a commercial school. During these years Tom was restless. He had no particular objective. He felt himself a failure. Even then he felt the stirring of 'the wild bird in his breast;' he was conscious of power, cramped, and repressed; he was conscious of a great need to do something, but he had no one to direct or advise him. They were not happy years. A square peg was trying desperately to make itself fit into a round hole."
"At last Tom went to business school in Chatham, as his brother George had done. However, since Tom had no business instinct or 'money sense,' years of business training would never have made a commercial man of him. Eventually he followed George Thomson to Seattle and entered his school there. He was now about twenty four. It was time to be settling down to something definite. One day he suggested that he would like to work in an engraving house. Not long afterwards he secured a job in the art department of commercial engravers and was launched upon a vocation. The old inclination for sketching now came into good account. Pretty soon Tom could be trusted with orders, but as soon as he learned to master his pencil, Tom balked at slavishly following out other people's ideas. When he was left with instructions he would quietly go ahead and work out a design to suit himself. Though sometimes his boss would storm, a customer was never known to turn down a design submitted by the amateur artist. There are a few sketches in pen and ink or pencil, a few very amateurish water colours existing from this time. Thomson stayed three years or so in Seattle, but he was not contented and longed for his own countryside again. At last he returned to Toronto and there secured work in another engraving house. At length, compelled northward by his longing for the open, Thomson began that curious dual career of his, spending a few months every winter in the city as a commercial artist only in order to get enough money together to make it possible to live in the north from early spring until early winter."
In the next twenty-four hours, the eastern seaboard of the United States, including the cities of New York, and Boston, and then the Canadian Maritime Provinces, will be hit by a giant winter storm, bringing high winds, and potentially, wild periods of heavy snow and freezing rain. I feel bad for them, honestly, but I'm feeling thankful right now, that we're not in line for a direct hit. It has already seemed like a beast of a winter even compared to last year, which was pretty horrible, even for a nature lover like me. I can hardly wait to know what the groundhog sees next week. In the meantime, take it easy out there, and bundle up. I'm just going to huddle with Muffin the new Birch Hollow dog, by the hearth, and cradle a cup of tea; and thank God we don't dwell on the east coast.
Please join me tomorrow, for a return to the Blodwen Davies biography, of Tom Thomson, known as "Paddle and Palette," as part two of this week's Thomson profile.
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