Lifeworks: Escape artist

The Jack Pine (1916–1917) is Tom Thomson's iconic painting of the Canadian wilderness. It is also an icon of the status that Thomson himself achieved after his unexplained death on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park, Ont., at the age of 39. This status originated among his peer artists, who later formed the Group of Seven,1 and his patron, Toronto ophthalmologist Dr. James MacCallum (1860–1944).2 In the exhibition Tom Thomson the National Gallery of Canada presents a comprehensive and intriguing look at both the artist and the icon and reveals the extent to which the two coexist. Thomson's fame as an artist rests on five short years of production, beginning in 1912, after his first trip into Algonquin Park. It is apparent in the over 140 works in the show that his abilities as a painter increased exponentially during this period — which, had he lived longer, would have been considered his formative years. Largely self-taught, Thomson developed his painting skills through connections with several future Group of Seven artists who, like Thomson, were employees at Toronto's Grip Limited, a graphic arts firm. Thomson was already interested in painting landscapes outdoors, and his technique underwent startlingly rapid growth through his close contact with J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Franklin Carmichael, Frederick Varley, Lawren Harris and A.Y. Jackson. At his death he left an impressive body of work — roughly 45 canvasses, 600 oil sketches and a small collection of watercolours, drawings and graphic designs. His many surviving sketches — small, on-site paintings on paperboard or wood panels, such as Sunset (1915) — reveal his almost obsessive interest in the northern Ontario landscape.3 The sketches, executed with energetic brushwork and vivid colours, pulsate with a sense of directness and immediacy. They also reveal that Thomson's painting was an intuitive and emotional response to an environment, an atmosphere, a quality of light. This approach imbues his work with a spiritual dimension.4 In the years since his death, Thomson, like Niagara Falls, the Rocky Mountains, the RCMP and Anne of Green Gables, has become part of the Canadian identity. The basic facts of his life are verifiable: born the sixth child of a Claremont, Ont., farmer in 1877, an avid camper and fisherman, an ambivalent graphic artist who drifted to Seattle, then to Toronto, artistically talented, but not inclined to paint in earnest until the last five years of his life. These details have been filtered and reformulated to create an idea of Thomson that endures in the popular imagination. The tales of his wilderness exploits in Algonquin Park, the ambiguities surrounding his violent death and even his purported haunting of Canoe Lake have transcended the facts. Instead of ignoring the Thomson mythology and attempting to present a scholarly study of his life and work, the National Gallery's show acknowledges and clearly situates the mythological Thomson alongside the documented one, delivering a thoroughly satisfying portrait of both. Beyond the immediate beauty of the paintings and the larger-than-life mythology, Little Cauchon Lake, a small oil sketch painted during a visit to Algonquin in spring 1916, encapsulates Thomson's universal appeal. In the foreground,Thomson depicts a small figure fishing, dwarfed in the rush of a waterfall behind him. But the sweep of the fisherman's arm follows the direction of the water's flow — the figure is subordinate to nature, but is also in harmony with it. This, Thomson's experience of nature, is what everyone desires to experience. For Thomson ultimately symbolizes escapism: he personifies our need and desire to put aside the ordinary routines of our daily lives and challenge ourselves with the same activities that were so important to him. At one point or another we all dream of the opportunity to test our ability to not only confront and survive the elements, but also to connect with our own origins at their most elemental level. Thomson succeeded in living out this ideal. He also succeeded, in his short artistic career, in communicating not only the evidence but the primordial essence of this need. Tom Thomson scrutinizes these interwoven implications of the artist's life and work and establishes a high standard for others to follow. Vivian Tors Ottawa, Ont.

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