| The West Wind | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Tom Thomson |
| Year | 1917 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 120.7 cm× 137.2 cm(47.5 in× 54.0 in) |
| Location | Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
The West Wind is a 1917 painting by Canadian artist Tom Thomson. An iconic image, the pine at its centre has been described as growing "in the national ethos as our one and only tree in a country of trees". [1] It was painted in the last year of Thomson's life and was one of his final works on canvas.
Thomson based The West Wind on an earlier, slightly different sketch he produced in 1916 while working as a park ranger in Algonquin Park. [2] In the finished canvas Thomson moved the pine further to the right, replaced a less defined foreground plane with strongly patterned rock shapes, and removed a dead tree limb from the ground. [1] The location of the subject is uncertain; Thomson's friend Winifred Trainor believed the site represented was Cedar Lake, though Grand Lake, Algonquin Park has also been proposed as the setting. [3]
As in his iconic The Jack Pine , Thomson began the painting with an undercoat of vermilion that he allowed to show through in various places to contrast with the greens, to lend the work a feeling of "vibration" and movement. [4] The pine dominates the composition without obscuring the view into the distance, and is successful as both specific representation and abstract design. [1]
Though not imposing in scale, it is a graceful arabesque decoration, "a magnified bonsai". [1] Thomson's background in design lent his composition an art-nouveau sensibility, for example, "in the way a single tree stands silhouetted against water or the sky like a symbol of romantic solitude". [5] An earlier reviewer noticed the same effect in it and The Jack Pine: "[these] two best-known canvases... are essentially Art Nouveau designs in the flat, the principal motif in each case being a tree drawn in great sinuous curves... Such pictures, are, however, saved from complete stylization by the use of uncompromisingly native subject-matter and of Canadian colours, the glowing colours of autumn." [6]
The title of The West Wind is possibly a reference to the 1819 Percy Bysshe Shelley poem, Ode to the West Wind , especially possible given Thomson's love of poetry, [7] though Thomson's later canvases are typically believed to have only been titled after his death. [8] [9]
According to Trainor, Thomson was not satisfied with the picture, fearing that the flat abstract shapes of the foreground rocks and trees were inconsistent with the atmospheric conception of the background. [10] Thomson's colleague J. E. H. MacDonald felt similarly, describing the painting as "faulty and inconsistent." [11] [12] Curator Charles Hill has noted that the tension arises due to the trunk of the tree being "unmodulated and outlined in a darker colour" and the foreground rocks being blocked schematically, all while the sky and water "are treated with a feathery touch." [12] Despite these shortcomings, he would still write that the painting surges with an energy due to its boldness and directness. [12] Thomson's other colleague Arthur Lismer would be more positive in his appraisal, writing that the tree in The West Wind was symbolic of the national character — models of resolve against the elements. [10] [13] David Silcox has described this painting and The Jack Pine as, "the visual equivalent of a national anthem, for they have come to represent the spirit of the whole country, notwithstanding the fact that vast tracts of Canada have no pine trees," [14] and, "so majestic and memorable that nearly everyone knows them." [15] Thomson biographer and curator Joan Murray, while initially disliking the painting, wrote that it "is a powerful canvas; resonating with its message of weather and wind, it expressed the divine as some of us imagine it in Canada. This is the sort of tree that would stand at the gates of heaven to open the doors of the kingdom." [16] Thomson's friend and patron Dr. James MacCallum would write that the painting's "inartistic reality makes me tell you that on that occasion the wind was north." [12] [17]
Some art historians claim the painting was unfinished at the time of his sudden death by drowning in 1917. [18] [19]
The Canadian Club of Toronto donated The West Wind to the recently opened Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario). Librarian George Locke, a club member, announced the donation in a speech, praising Thomson's accomplishments: "Thomson needs no tablet to commemorate his achievements ... He has left us work that expresses our national life – the forces of the great natural surroundings of this young land." [20]
On the fiftieth anniversary of Thomson's death, the Canadian government honoured him with a series of stamps portraying his works, including The West Wind and The Jack Pine. On 3 May 1990 Canada Post issued 'The West Wind, Tom Thomson, 1917' in the Masterpieces of Canadian art series. The stamp was designed by Pierre-Yves Pelletier based on the large painting in the Art Gallery of Ontario. [21]
In 2015, the Art Gallery of Ontario held an exhibition titled Into the Woods: an Icon Revisited, focusing on the wider social and historical context of Algonquin Park. It stressed that even in Thomson's time, the landscape of Algonquin Park was by no means unspoiled wilderness but had been dramatically reshaped by colonization, industry and wildlife management. [22]
The Group of Seven, once known as the Algonquin School, was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933, originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945), Lawren Harris (1885–1970), A. Y. Jackson (1882–1974), Frank Johnston (1888–1949), Arthur Lismer (1885–1969), J. E. H. MacDonald (1873–1932), and Frederick Varley (1881–1969). Later, A. J. Casson (1898–1992) was invited to join in 1926, Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) became a member in 1930, and LeMoine FitzGerald (1890–1956) joined in 1932.
Thomas John Thomson was a Canadian artist active in the early 20th century. During his short career, he produced roughly 400 oil sketches on small wood panels and approximately 50 larger works on canvas. His works consist almost entirely of landscapes, depicting trees, skies, lakes, and rivers. He used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the beauty and colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's accidental death by drowning at 39 shortly before the founding of the Group of Seven is seen as a tragedy for Canadian art.
Arthur Lismer, LL.D. was an English-Canadian painter, member of the Group of Seven and educator. He is known primarily as a landscape painter and for his paintings of ships in dazzle camouflage.
Alexander Young Jackson LL.D. was a Canadian painter and a founding member of the Group of Seven. Jackson made a significant contribution to the development of art in Canada, and was instrumental in bringing together the artists of Montreal and Toronto. He helped found the Group of Seven in 1920. In addition to his work with the Group of Seven, his long career included serving as a War Artist during World War I (1917–19) and teaching at the Banff School of Fine Arts, from 1943 to 1949. In his later years he was artist-in-residence at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario.
Lawren Stewart Harris LL.D. was a Canadian painter, best known as a leading member of the Group of Seven. He played a key role as a catalyst in Canadian art and as a visionary in Canadian landscape art.
Franklin Carmichael was a Canadian artist and member of the Group of Seven. Though he was primarily famous for his use of watercolours, he also used oil paints, charcoal and other media to capture the Ontario landscapes. Besides his work as a painter, he worked as a designer and illustrator, creating promotional brochures, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and designing books. Near the end of his life, Carmichael taught in the Graphic Design and Commercial Art Department at the Ontario College of Art.
James Edward Hervey MacDonald (1873–1932) was an English-Canadian artist, best known as a member of the Group of Seven who asserted a distinct national identity combined with a common heritage stemming from early modernism in Europe in the early twentieth century. He was the father of the illustrator, graphic artist and designer Thoreau MacDonald.
The Jack Pine is a well-known oil painting by Canadian artist Tom Thomson. A representation of the most broadly distributed pine species in Canada, it is considered an iconic image of the country's landscape, and is one of the country's most widely recognized and reproduced artworks.
William Cruikshank was a British painter and the grand-nephew of George Cruikshank. He studied art at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, at the Royal Academy School in London with Frederic Leighton and John Everett Millais, and in Paris at the Atelier Yvon. His last studies were interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War.
Alice Elinor Lambert (1886–1981) was an American romance writer.
J. W. Beatty (1869–1941) was a Canadian painter who was a forerunner in the movement which became the Group of Seven in 1920.
Joan Arden Charlat Murray, is a Canadian writer, curator, art historian and champion of Canadian art history.
Fine Weather, Georgian Bay is a 1913 oil painting by J.E.H. MacDonald. It is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
James Metcalfe MacCallum (1860–1943) was a Canadian ophthalmologist and one of the most important patrons of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven.
Northern River is a 1914–15 oil painting by Canadian painter Tom Thomson. The work was inspired by a sketch completed over the same winter, possibly in Algonquin Park. The completed canvas is large, measuring 115.1 × 102.0 cm. Painted over the winter of 1914–15, it was completed in Thomson's shack behind the Studio Building in Toronto. The painting was produced as he was entering the peak of his short art career and is considered one of his most notable works. In 1915 it was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and has remained in the collection ever since.
The death of Tom Thomson, the Canadian painter, occurred on 8 July 1917, on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park in Nipissing District, Ontario, Canada. After Thomson drowned in the water, his upturned canoe was discovered later that afternoon and his body eight days later. Many theories regarding Thomson's death—including that he was murdered or committed suicide—have become popular in the years since his death, though these ideas lack any substantiation.
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.
Spring Ice is a 1915–16 oil painting by Canadian painter Tom Thomson. The work was inspired by a sketch completed on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park. The completed canvas is large, measuring 72.0 × 102.3 cm. Painted over the winter of 1915–16, it was completed in Thomson's shack behind the Studio Building in Toronto. The painting was produced as he was in the peak of his short art career and is considered one of his most notable works. While exhibited in a show put on by the Ontario Society of Artists, the work received mixed to positive reviews. In 1916 it was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and has remained in the collection ever since.
Drowned Land is a 1912 oil sketch by the 20th-century Canadian painter Tom Thomson.
Richard Gorman was a Canadian painter and printmaker. He was known for his magnetic prints which he created using ink covered ball-bearings manipulated with a magnet held behind the drawing board and for his large paintings in which he broadly handled paint.
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