DOI issue:
No. 317 (August 1919)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21358#0136
STUDIO-TALK
“ THE DRIVE, SOUTH RIVER
BY TOM THOMSON
the Ontario hinterland which he came to
love so well, and whose grim beauty he has
since interpreted so inimitably. There-
after he forsook the workshop in the city
except for a brief space each winter when
he laboured as a draughtsman that he
might earn enough to provide for his frugal
necessities to carry him through those
glorious nine or ten months when he
realised to the full the joy of existence.
The sketches he made during those next
two or three years are curiously interesting
in view of the subsequent remarkable rapid
development of his powers of expression.
There is little about them to indicate that
latent genius which presently was to blase
forth with a suddenness suggestive almost
of spontaneous generation. 000
120
Thomson had reached the age of thirty-
seven before he began definitely to paint in
oil. He died when he was forty-two and
it was only during the three last years of his
life that he was able to give adequate
expression to his undoubted genius. Of
some of the pictures painted during this
period it may be said that they not only
represent a high-water mark of landscape-
painting in Canada, but would compel
homage in any company anywhere. 0
In the ordinary sense he received no art
training; but no conventional training in
the schools could have stood him in such
good stead as the preparation circumstances
afforded him. During his apprenticeship
as a “ commercial artist ” or designer he
was required constantly to solve problems
“ THE DRIVE, SOUTH RIVER
BY TOM THOMSON
the Ontario hinterland which he came to
love so well, and whose grim beauty he has
since interpreted so inimitably. There-
after he forsook the workshop in the city
except for a brief space each winter when
he laboured as a draughtsman that he
might earn enough to provide for his frugal
necessities to carry him through those
glorious nine or ten months when he
realised to the full the joy of existence.
The sketches he made during those next
two or three years are curiously interesting
in view of the subsequent remarkable rapid
development of his powers of expression.
There is little about them to indicate that
latent genius which presently was to blase
forth with a suddenness suggestive almost
of spontaneous generation. 000
120
Thomson had reached the age of thirty-
seven before he began definitely to paint in
oil. He died when he was forty-two and
it was only during the three last years of his
life that he was able to give adequate
expression to his undoubted genius. Of
some of the pictures painted during this
period it may be said that they not only
represent a high-water mark of landscape-
painting in Canada, but would compel
homage in any company anywhere. 0
In the ordinary sense he received no art
training; but no conventional training in
the schools could have stood him in such
good stead as the preparation circumstances
afforded him. During his apprenticeship
as a “ commercial artist ” or designer he
was required constantly to solve problems