Tom Thompson

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A Canadian Visionary

Tom Thompson’s paintings include some of most recognized of Canadian culture. The sixth on nine children, Thompson was born in Claremont, a village northeast of Toronto, in 1877. He died on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park in July 1917 at the age of 39 and at the height of his talent.

His death has been turned into one of those mulled over, rumor-filled, unsolved mysteries that so fascinate everyone and generate lots of theories.

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Thompson’s empty canoe was found on July 8, 1917 and his body discovered on the shore a week later. There was a big bruise across one temple. What happened? Nobody knows (well somebody likely knew, but they would be long dead now) and it is very likely he was whacked. In any case, his death has been the focus of more public interest than his life.

Thompson and the Group of Seven (formed in 1920, three years after his death) were the first true Canadian artists and of course they were reviled for it at the time. Up to then, landscapes were supposed to look like European art, with manicured forest glades and woodland nymphs. The press and critics called their paintings “degenerate,” “ugly,” and “weird.” So much for critics, who generally hate change – like the rest of us.

But Thompson made us look at our country differently. The ruggedness of lakes, rocks, and pines in his paintings changed our vision.

Thompson himself has been mythologized, as we do with anyone famous whether he is athlete or entertainer. Maybe that view excludes the personal flaws we all own. We remember Albert Einstein as a great genius, which he was but erase the fact that in his personal life he was a jerk. Or Joe DiMaggio and Ty Cobb, whom we remember as great baseball players and not as the narcissistic jerks they also, were.

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Thompson himself has been elevated to the status of legendary woodsman-artist, and although a bit of that is likely true, much of it is an imaginative fiction that portrays him as a rustic hero of the north woods. A Paul Bunyan figure that also painted. We like that kind of Canadian myth. But he did have a sort of maverick quality and in many ways was his own victim.

It was reported that a women Annie Fraser told friends Thompson had been killed by her husband in a fight after a drinking bout. Probably none of it matters. What does matter is his paintings.

It’s true he was a fisherman, woodsman, and commercial artist who, although born in Claremont, Ontario grew up in Own Sound. He worked in Seattle and then in Toronto until 1913 when he quit his job and moved to Algonquin Park. There he painted and worked part-time as a fire ranger and fishing guide. From then on, until his death, Thompson spent months at a time camping, canoeing, and painting his way through the wilderness park.

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I look at his paintings, the big ones like Northern River, Pine Island – Georgian Bay and The Jack Pine, as well as the small oil sketches he made, and I wonder, “How could he do it?” What must it have been like almost 100 years ago, waking up in soggy tent, cooking over an open fire, the black flies day after day and the heat and the rain, lugging his stuff and obsessively painting?

When he died he left over 500 oil sketches (on 8.5 x 10.5-inch wood panels) and 45 larger canvases, all painted between 1911 and 1917. The sketches are loose, quickly exploding from his brush, and bursting with the colors and light of the moment. Simply put, they are wonderful.

Like many, Thompson did not live to see the acceptance of his vision of Canada and his influence on artists who followed. I don’t know what kind of a guy he was, but boy, could he paint!

This print has been in my home since I was a child.