One hundred years ago my hometown hero died mysteriously in
Algonquin Park, Ontario.
His name: Tom Thomson.
In less time than a one-term American president, Tom Thomson
painted his way into the Canadian canon of fine art. And, then, suddenly in
July 1917, he drowned in Canoe Lake.
No, he is not van Gogh, Picasso or Whistler. Even in Canada,
he is not known simply as “Thomson.” Like so many Canadian treasures, he is not
a household name beyond his native land.
And yet. He lived and painted the land in three-plus years
before his death like no one before him or since. He risked much on long fishing
trips, bringing with him a low-tech artist’s box to hold oil sketches that took
as long as two months to dry. An expert canoeist and skilled outdoorsman, I
imagine him alone in the dark woods, smoking Hudson Bay tobacco from his
ever-present pipe, reading “The Compleat Angler” by moonlight. It is a quiet search for serenity that shuts
out the noise of ideas, the march to war during those years. He painted like a
man possessed. But not like the ambitious, manic genius of a van Gogh. Rather
of a simple, just man captivated by nature’s grace.
He painted, I like to believe, until his work was done. And
then he was gone.
A great like this, if he were alive today, would teach us
pretty much all we would need to know.
Next: Running for
Your Life: Race Ahead
