Tom Thomson (Canadian, 1877-1917)
Untitled, c. 1910.
Oil on canvas, 32.8cm x 40.5cm.
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Collection. Anonymous gift, 1995.
Photo: Robert McNair.
Jon Sasaki (Canadian, b. 1973)
A quarter inch square of a Tom Thomson painting, 2013.
Pigment print, 42.6cm x 62.9cm.
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery commission, 2013.
© Jon Sasaki. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: Jon Sasaki.
This Tom Thomson is a rare example of the artist’s early pastoral style. On the journey from the artist’s easel, the small painting was removed from its stretcher and was cut free from all excess canvas. In time, it came to be tucked away, rolled up, in domestic storage. When it found its way out of storage again, in the 1970s, it was carefully unrolled, cleaned and given a thin coat of dammar varnish.
The road over the past hundred years or so has been long and eventful and the painting shows the inevitable signs of age. Shifts in the canvas have led to shifts in the paint layer.
By magnifying the intersection of three tiny brushstrokes in Thomson’s painting prior to its conservation in 2016, Jon Sasaki’s photograph reveals an ever-changing landscape that, like the painting itself, is vulnerable to the ravages of climate and time.
Discussion: At over 100 years old, Thomson’s painting is given a new focus through Sasaki’s photograph of a small section. Think about how a painting changes as it ages, and consider and discuss how its meaning and significance might shift as society changes.
Activity: Use a viewfinder to focus on a small detail of a subject. Spend some time sketching this small section in as much detail as you can. What new features do you notice now that you are looking at the subject in a different way?