Talk:Tom Thomson

Sub-topics to split

Outriggr recently pointed out to me that this page is getting somewhat long—at the moment it's sitting at 155 kb and 11,775 readable words. It is usually recommended that any page that goes past 100 kb "[a]lmost certainly should be divided." In this thread, I was hoping we could open up a discussion about where splits could potentially be made. Following WP:SPLITTING and the page I've been basing this one on—Vincent van Gogh—there are a few areas that might make sense:

• Death of Tom Thomson: this one is obvious enough. For those outside of the art world, the name Tom Thomson brings to mind two things: The Jack Pine and the circumstances of Thomson's death. Conspiracy theories seem abuzz here so this topic has never really interested me, but the public interest seems enough to possibly warrant an independent page.
• Tom Thomson and Algonquin Park: this could possibly cover the time from Thomson's first visit to Algonquin Park in May 1912 to his death in 1917. This could be further divided as needed. There are a lot of minute details covering his activity during this period already within the article and plenty more within this source: Reid, Dennis, ed. (2002). Tom Thomson. Toronto/Ottawa: Art Gallery of Ontario/National Gallery of Canada.
• Methods and materials of Tom Thomsons(?): I think there's enough reference material for this one, given the sections on his art and technique, particularly the sketch to canvas transition, the development of the material he used and his final approach towards abstraction. I'm not completely sure whether to do this one, given that Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt have no such pages. However, they do have pages on specific topics, such as...
• Industry and nature paintings by Tom Thomson or Industry and nature paintings by the Group of Seven: this seems one of the most important topic within the themes of Thomson, Franklin Carmichael, J. E. H. MacDonald and Arthur Lismer.

If anyone has any other preliminary ideas, I'd love to hear them! Thanks. Tkbrett (✉) 20:39, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that on Wikipedia the absence of X doesn't mean that X isn't appropriate. Writers as dedicated as you, with extensive literature at hand (without which the dedication doesn't help much), are very very rare. If they weren't, we would have, you know, "Technique of Rembrandt [over time]" and such. The evolving method of a major artist is a great topic in principle for its own page, and I think we don't see them because they're the hardest thing about an artist to write about, with sources. If you can do it, I would prioritize that one. As I already said, I'm not real familiar with Thomson, but Algonquin seems like a good split, and possibly a split combining "death and legacy". Outriggr (talk) 00:41, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Death and legacy of Tom Thomson page is coming up. It is essentially the Legacy and influence section from this page. Now I need to write a shorter summary for that section. Tkbrett (✉) 06:09, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Artistic development of Tom Thomson is now also up. Tkbrett (✉) 20:32, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I also created a Tom Thomson navigational box to help keep things organized. Tkbrett (✉) 21:18, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I made a page for the 1915–16 painting, Spring Ice. This means there are now articles for all four of Thomson's "big works" (specifically, Northern River, The West Wind and The Jack Pine as well as this new page). Who says these are the bigger paintings? Well, the only place I've really seen a list is on his plaque in Leith, Ontario. I guess this just opens the question of where to go to next... Tkbrett (✉) 18:56, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Another painting, this time the notable 1912 sketch Drowned Land. Besides pages for other important and noteworthy paintings, I'm not sure what else to add. I will possibly consider the previously mentioned Tom Thomson and Algonquin Park page once both the (currently ongoing) peer review and (eventual) good article review have run their course for this page. Tkbrett (✉) 03:01, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

External link

Resolved

I'm trying to include an external link for the Art Gallery of Ontario online collection, but because there are square brackets in the url it doesn't seem to be working. This is what I'm typing:

[https://ago.ca/collection/browse?related_artists[30151]=30151 Tom Thomson] at the [[Art Gallery of Ontario]]

The result is:

[30151=30151 Tom Thomson] at the Art Gallery of Ontario

I couldn't find any guidance on this issue from either WP:EL or Help:External links and references, so any help would be appreciated! Tkbrett (✉) 19:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

You can use this character encoding stuff to solve the problem. There is probably a template that does this, but I don't know what it is. Here is the URL with the replacement of [ and ]:

https://ago.ca/collection/browse?related_artists%5B30151%5D=30151

Tom Thomson at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Outriggr (talk) 00:29, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Perfect, thank you! I've added it in. Tkbrett (✉) 00:56, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Tom Thomson catalogue raisonné

Resolved

A few days ago, the Tom Thomson catalogue appeared to go offline. This site is one of the most important resources available, providing high resolution images and information for nearly every Thomson painting. I am trying to figure out how to contact the site creator, Joan Murray, but haven't had any luck so far as she does not have any contact information on her personal website. If anyone can help ensure that she is aware, it would be greatly appreciated! Tkbrett (✉) 02:03, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

The site came back up today. I made sure to write down the contact email for the website this time around. Tkbrett (✉) 20:44, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

comments

Hi @Tkbrett:. I might do a bit of editing (feel free to revert anything bad), and bring a few questions here. I am not watching the FAC, so if I go against something there, then prefer them, I guess.

• You may want to check the accuracy of the first block quote. The last sentence says At time he liked to be that way, wanted to be by himself commune with nature., which I assume needs two corrections.
• Thomson moved to Toronto in the summer of 1905. His first job upon his return--I'm not clear from the article when he had been in Toronto before? (I removed the second "his" as unnecessary but it returned.)
• Robson eventually hired Frederick Varley, followed by Franklin Carmichael in... Lawren Harris—possibly clarification of who these people are or would become (G7) would be helpful earlier on in the paragraph. It's written with a sense of building to a climax, for readers who already know the significance of the G7, but other readers might not catch the meaning.

Thanks, Outriggr (talk) 02:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

"Time" should be "times", but otherwise the awkward phrasing and lack of punctuation for the quotation is correct. A copy of the letter on Gregory Klages website quotes it as, "at times he liked to be that way wanted to be by himself commune with nature", while the source I've used (Hunter (2002)) quotes, "At times he liked to be that way, wanted to be by himself commune with nature." (Also, the website says the letter is from 1931 while Hunter says 1930. I'll stick with the latter). At first I thought there was a missing "and" and that the intent was to communicate something like, "wanted to be by himself [and] commune with nature." But now that I'm reading it, I think he misspelled "common", producing "wanted to be by himself [common] with nature." Given the rules at WP:PRIMARY, I can't personally interpret it and I think I'm unlikely to find any helpful secondary source given the obscurity of the letter. Should I simply affix a Sic template to it?

You're correct. I didn't mean that he was returning to Toronto, but rather to Canada. I've fixed the ambiguity. The second "his" came back in this edit.

You're right: I added a sentence in the beginning of the paragraph that hopefully makes it more apparent why these hirings are being mentioned. Tkbrett (✉) 03:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Another item that I didn't understand was As was typical for early twentieth century painting, Thomson produced still lifes of flowers. Typical in what context... Outriggr (talk) 03:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• My source for that sentence was the following: "Still lifes and portraits were a staple of painting in the early twentieth century. Still lifes were primarily of flowers, to which nearly every artist turns at some point." (Silcox 2006, p. 75) Perhaps it could be reworded into, "As was typical for artists of the early twentieth century, Thomson produced still lifes of flowers." Tkbrett (✉) 03:55, 6 November 2018 (UTC)