Tom Thomson: The Last Spring

Paul Hjartarson is an associate professor of English at the University
of Alberta.

In the concluding paragraph of this book, the author writes that Tom
Thomson “has become a compelling Canadian myth; and his work receives
less analysis than homage.” Murray, director of the Robert McLaughlin
Gallery in Oshawa, seeks to offer analysis. This slim coffee-table book
focuses on Thomson’s painting in the months prior to his mysterious
death in July 1917. Although the paintings are beautifully reproduced,
and the idea for the book intriguing, it is more homage than convincing
analysis.

According to Murray, Thomson, in his final years, saw himself as a
naturalist intent on recording the physical environment of Algonquin
Park. Murray argues that in that final spring, Thomson attempted in a
series of paintings to capture the passing seasons, but provides little
evidence to support her arguments. The only direct documentation is a
letter written by Mark Robinson, a park warden, almost seven years after
Thomson’s death: “In the spring before his untimely death, [Thomson]
painted a canvas a day showing the various stages of the advancing
spring and summer.” Of the 62 sketches reportedly made, Murray claims
to have located 38. These are reproduced in the book (25 in color and 13
in black and white). The evidence for dating many of them is
circumstantial. For example, Murray places the painting titled Canoe
Lake in Thomson’s last spring “because of the wintry sky and ice
lake.” The chronological arrangement of the paintings is thus rough
indeed, and the narrative thereby provided is illusory. The strength of
Tom Thomson: The Last Spring lies in Murray’s engagement with her
subject. Unfortunately, that is also the source of the book’s
weakness: regarding Thomson “as a hero and an inspiration,” she is
unable to offer the discerning analysis that she herself recognizes his
artwork needs.