THOMAS COLE (1801-1848)
Thomas Cole was the leading American landscape artist of his time. He and his followers were referred to as the Hudson River School. Asher B. Durand, John Kensett, and Frederic E. Church were among those who looked to Cole for inspiration as members of his group of artists. To the rich detail in Cole’s landscape paintings he often added an allegorical or narrative content. American landscape painting attained recognition as fine art through the combined efforts of Cole and his followers.
Thomas Cole was born at Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England in 1801. By his mid-teens he was apprenticed to an engraver. He was nearly eighteen years old when his family emigrated from England in 1819. In Philadelphia, he obtained a position working with another engraver. Following a brief trip to the West Indies in 1820, Cole returned to the United States. His family had settled in Stubenville, Ohio. He joined them there, and was employed as a block engraver for two years. During that period, he also took art lessons in Stubenville from a traveling portrait painter. As a result, in his early twenties Cole briefly pursued the career of an itinerant artist whose specialty was portraits.
In 1823, Cole went to Philadelphia, and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he took a class in drawing from plaster casts. At the end of that period, he moved to New York City in 1825. There he sold several paintings. The man who purchased them, George W. Bruen, financed a summer trip to the Hudson Valley where Cole produced landscape sketches on which he based the paintings: Views of Coldspring, Mountain House, The Ruins of Fort Putman and Kaaterskill Falls. Back in New York City, Cole placed
his paintings on display in the window of the bookstore and picture-framing establishment owned by William Coleman. Mr. A. Seton purchased two of the Hudson Valley paintings. Apparently Seton then lent the two paintings to the American Academy of the Fine Arts for the 1826 annual exhibition, where Asher B. Durand, William Dunlap, and John Trumbull viewed them. Impressed by Cole’s obvious talent, Trumbull is said to have purchased one of the paintings. Also, he introduced Cole to two wealthy men, Robert Gilmer and Daniel Wadsworth, who became Cole’s art patrons.
In 1827, Cole established a studio at Cedar Grove, a farm located near the town of Catskill, New York. Painted at that time, The Clove, Catskills, 1827, is a depiction of that mountainous area during the autumn. The hill, on the left side of the painting, is flooded with late afternoon sunlight. Sun also bathes the rocks in the foreground and the twisted bare branches of a small, stunted tree in the far right corner. There, the bright areas of fall color are seen against a slope of steep hillside that is otherwise drenched in deep shadow. In the lower left corner, a mountain stream slips over a rock-topped cliff as a small waterfall. The painting is a study in warm and cool colors. The subtly blended reds, oranges and soft yellows of fall foliage fill the left side, while the cool blue-gray triangle of the shadowy hillside dominates the right side. Strong overlapping diagonals in the painting lead the viewer’s eye to a triangle of blue sky in the center background. Hovering gray clouds, across the top of the canvas, tie together the two sides of the steep mountain. Beneath the detailed realism in Cole’s work is a strong, well-balanced composition. The quiet beauty of the painting creates a mood of deep silence and a feeling is conveyed that one may have happened on the scene while following a rough trail through the woods on a crisp fall day.
By 1829, Cole had established his reputation as a landscape artist, and was one of the founding members of the National Academy of Design. That summer, on the first day of June, he departed for a two-year stay in Europe. Cole traveled through England, France and Italy. While in Rome, he moved into the studio previously occupied by the French artist, Claude Lorrain. Cole’s lasting interest in ancient ruins developed during his stay in Italy. His exposure to paintings by the old masters, exhibited in the European museums of art, increased his interest in producing paintings based on historical, religious and allegorical themes filled with high moral content.
While still in Europe, Cole produced a painting based on an earlier time. However, rather than a scene with ruins, the setting was a rugged, wooded area. A Wild Scene, c.1831, depicts a small group of men hunting in a ruggedly beautiful woodland area. More idealized than The Clove, Catskills, with its simple setting, A Wild Scene, introduces narrative into a rugged landscape. Interestingly, the foreground rocks, trees, people, and animals are depicted with stark realism while the background, with its smooth body of water and the dramatically pointed, sharply up-thrusting mountains and the boiling clouds, conveys a dreamlike quality. Male figures, clothed in fur-like garments, are clearly seen on either side of a tumbling, rock-strewn stream. A man on the right bank stands beside a huge tree aiming his bow and arrow at a deer that is leaping across the waterway. A figure on the left side of the stream stands on a rock-ledge, pointing toward the hunter and deer. Foliage conceals all but the head and shoulders of another member of the hunting team. On the far left, an individual stands on a high point facing away from the action that is taking place. He signals with raised arms to unseen members of the hunting party. The painting is primarily a landscape, since the figures are small. There is no sign of a habitation. They could be a traveling band of hunters. The high drama of the sky and mountainous background creates a mood of unreality, enhancing the impression of looking back in time to an earlier era. Cole returned to America in 1832, after two years in Europe.
During his stay in Europe, Cole had developed the concept for a series of large paintings based on developmental stages from the beginning of an empire through its most advanced period on to its ultimate demise. The art patron, Luman Reed, commissioned Cole to produce The Course of Empire, 1836, as a series of five paintings with the following subtitles: first, The Savage State; second, The Arcadian or Pastoral State; third, The Consummation of Empire; fourth, Destruction; and fifth, Desolation. Produced during 1835-1836, The Consummation of Empire painting in the series depicts a beautiful, pristine, Greek architectural setting of columned buildings, bridges and towers, surrounding the placid waters of a bay filled with small boats. Statuary, some in gold, others in white marble, adorns the scene. One prominent marble statue tops a high columned pedestal. Crowds of people appear on huge balconies or patios while others form a parade crossing a low, level bridge in the foreground. The scene is filled with signs of opulence and wealth. Drapery and swags decorate walls. The painting appears to capture a day of celebration.
While Cole was deeply involved with finishing the Course of Empire series, he was advised by Reed and others to paint a view from nature for an upcoming exhibition. Cole followed their suggestion, producing a painting entitled The Oxbow, 1836. The canvas, on which it was painted, was larger than those Cole generally used for his landscape scenes. The size of the painting is explained by the fact that the only canvas he had available at the time was one on which he had done a preparatory sketch for a painting in the Empire series commissioned by Reed. In a letter to his patron, Cole stated that he doubted that he would be able to sell such a large canvas, adding that he had only sold two paintings that were displayed in an exhibition.
The painting Cole executed for the art show, The Oxbow, captures a feeling of space, light, and atmosphere. He divided the picture plane diagonally. The dark value tones, of a green foliage-covered hillside, stretch from the right lower corner up through dark gray rain clouds in the upper left corner. A folding stool and sun umbrella, just down the hillside on a rock outcropping overlooking the river, suggest the presence of the artist nearby. The folded white umbrella, with its long handle stuck into the ground, leans slightly to one side, pointing its red tip toward the oxbow curve of the river down below. The far bank of the meandering old river curves into a huge circular bend forming an oxbow shape. Seen from the hillside, the sunlit valley and circular spit of land are covered with golden-toned cultivated fields and dotted with widely spaced small trees, under a pale blue sky. It is the quiet before the storm, for the dark clouds, with rain streaming down from them, threaten to engulf the peaceful valley.
During the same year in which he painted The Oxbow, in November of 1836, Cole married Maria Barton, the niece of the man from whom he rented space for his Catskill studio. At that time, Cole made his permanent home in Catskill, New York. Cole's "Essay on American Scenery" was published in the January 1836 issue of The American Monthly Magazine. In it Cole challenged the idea that paintings of American landscapes could not be compared with the beauty of European scenes, particularly those that contain the ruins of antiquity.
Historical paintings, and those based on literature, had been considered more important than landscapes; more serious work because the artist must have a thorough understanding of the historical event or literary subject depicted in the work of art. To fully appreciate the painting, the viewer must also know something of the literary or historical event. American landscape paintings, however, appealed to viewers in a more democratic way since experiencing the beauties of nature is common to all. As a result of the landscape paintings of Thomas Cole and his followers, there was a growing respect for American landscape art.
Cole’s studio in Catskill became the center around which landscape artists gathered. It was there, in the Catskill Mountains and surrounding areas, that American landscape painting developed. Thomas Cole and his fellow artists made nature studies of the woods, lakes, waterfalls, hills and mountains. The landscape paintings that resulted captured the beauty and grandeur of nature in different seasons and at different times of day. Cole was the leader of the group of artists that came to be known as The Hudson River School. The landscape artists included Asher Brown Durand, Frederick Edwin Church, John Frederick Kensett, and Albert Bierstadt. They shared a creative artistic environment in Cole's studio and in the surrounding countryside, developing a uniquely American landscape painting style.
Although he painted realistically, Cole strove to make the real more ideal, and explained that the mood of the entire scene, not the details, should capture the imagination of the viewer. In an effort to render the essence of a scene, he would spend approximately half-an-hour studying a landscape that he wanted to paint, committing to memory the details of rocks, trees, and all parts of the scene. He would then go to his studio and paint what he had retained of the landscape in his mind.
Cole produced imaginative compositions rather than exact renderings of views from nature. He sought the ideal of a typical beauty that lies hidden beneath external nature. Cole was also interested in moralistic allegories. He often chose to depict the imaginative, in preference to the strictly factual. William P. Van Rensselaer commissioned two paintings, which were to have morning and evening settings. Cole developed narrative themes, based on his imagination, which could have happened in the thirteenth century, as is evident in his paintings The Departure, 1837, set in the early morning hours, and The Return, 1837, with its evening setting.
In The Departure, a small group of medieval knights on horseback, wearing helmets and carrying lances, rides across a short bridge below a castle and down a dirt roadway toward the foreground. Early morning sunlight gleams on the bulwarks of the castle and bridge tower in the middle of the canvas. In the lead, a knight wearing a red cloak rides a white horse. He approaches a man clad in a brown robe, who stands in the center foreground with upraised right arm. Apparently, the monk or priest is offering a blessing or prayer for the success of their venture and safe return. The peaceful aspect of the scene is enhanced by several figures standing beside a fountain. One is a shepherd holding a staff. A goat grazes nearby. The morning is bright and full of promise. The fresh greens of spring fill the landscape.
In The Return, the last rays of the sun color the clouds and send long shafts of sunlight across the darkening landscape. One spot of light bathes the central figures in its soft glow. The riderless white horse follows four men who carry the body of the knight on a stretcher supported on their shoulders. They walk toward a tall gothic church, its arched windows softly glowing with light from within. The solitary mounted figure of a comrade follows, barely visible in the settling gloom. Ahead of them, the small brown figure of the monk waits. A huge tree on the right side of the painting is a mass of orange leaves, possibly reflecting both the blaze of autumn color that heralds the dying and dropping of fall leaves and the mortally wounded knight. Cole was frequently concerned about the response of his patrons to the paintings they had commissioned. He evidently needn't have worried about The Departure and The Return, since Cole mentioned, in a letter to his wife, that he had received $1,000 for each of the paintings.
Patrons, who commissioned paintings such as The Course of Empire series, and The Voyage of Life series, provided the opportunity for Thomas Cole to also paint allegorical works of art. In March 1839, the art patron, Samuel Ward, commissioned Cole to produce a series of four paintings based on the Voyage of Life theme. Commissions did not always go smoothly. During the time Cole worked on The Voyage of Life, 1840, series, Samuel Ward, died before they were finished. With difficulty, Cole convinced the heirs to Samuel Ward's estate to allow him to complete the series of paintings. When they agreed, and the series was finished, further complications arose, since the heirs would not allow the paintings to be viewed in a public exhibition.
When he was forty years of age, Cole made a return trip to Europe from 1841 to 1842. His travels took him from England to Italy, where he spent a considerable period of time in Sicily. Throughout his artistic career, Cole was torn between his desire to paint allegorical landscape scenes conveying a moral or spiritual message, and his need to earn a living by producing landscape scenes that were popular with the general public.
As a result of the dispute with Samuel Ward’s heirs, while in Rome in the winter of 1841-1842, Cole produced a second full-size set of The Voyage of Life series. Once back in America with the four large paintings that duplicated the original series, they were exhibited and highly acclaimed. The Voyage of Life series, dated 1841-1842, consists of allegorical paintings depicting four stages of a man’s life. They are subtitled Childhood, Youth, Manhood and Old Age. The symbolism with which Cole instilled each of the four works is clearly seen.
In The Voyage of Life: Childhood, a guardian angel in white stands tall behind the small nude child whose arms are raised in exuberation as he sits in the center of the small boat between the golden winged wooden masthead and the white robed figure standing protectively above the infant. Their small boat glides along a smooth stream in a sunny landscape.
In The Voyage of Life: Youth. The young man, dressed in a red garment, heads out from shore in the mythical small boat. The golden-wing, carved figurehead holds a lantern at the bow. The slender youth stands with his left hand on the tiller and, with his right hand, points up toward a white castle in the sky, its round dome surrounded by a halo of light. Standing on the shore behind him is the guardian angel with its flowing white gown and gossamer wings. Rays of light surround the angel’s golden hair as, with arm extended, the guardian spirit points in the direction the youth must travel, now alone in the boat. The river ahead is calm and smooth. In the sky, near the shimmering mirage, tall peaks of mountains thrust toward the heavens. The painting is filled with optimism, dreams of glory and the confidence of youth.
A very different mood is reflected in The Voyage of Life: Manhood painting. The grown man stands in the boat with his hands clasped before him, no longer steering the craft. It is the same vessel, which he now rides as a captive passenger, helpless as it approaches a drop in the river and a seething caldron of water surrounded by rocky cliffs. Overhead, a dark and threatening sky adds to the trials and tribulations that lie ahead.
In the last painting in the series, The Voyage of Life: Old Age, The man sits in a becalmed, rather battered boat that has lost its figurehead and appears rudderless. But the angel is back, floating just above the lone figure in the boat, and pointing ahead. The water, calm once more, is shadowed by dense, dark clouds that hide most of the sky and sag down to just above the dark water directly ahead of the boat. Still, above in the upper left corner of the scene, the clearing sky lit with a soft glow seems to promise brighter relief as he leaves the desolate landscape surrounding the boat and heads for the light.
There was an interesting and tragic connection between Samuel Ward, who commissioned The Voyage of Life series, and Luman Reed, who commissioned The Course of Empire series. Both art patrons died before the series each commissioned was finished. Despite the unfortunate demise and the difficulties encountered by Cole, the series paintings, with their allegorical themes and high moral content, were completed and greatly admired.
Cole accepted very few pupils. His first and best-known student was Frederic Edwin Church. In the second year that Church studied under him, Cole took two other students, B.M. McConkey and John Stemfort. Of the three students, it is only the work of Frederick Church that is widely known today. Cole’s studio in the Catskills was a gathering place for a group of artists who were inspired by Cole to produce landscape paintings that reflect the beauty of the surrounding area. From spring through fall, they went on sketching outings, walking for miles through the woodlands and countryside. Working from nature, the artists depicted the variety and beauty that was to be found particularly, but not exclusively, in the Catskill Mountains and along the shores of the Hudson River.
Walking long miles through the woods and open areas was a pattern of life for Thomas Cole. His wanderings, and those of his followers, were both an opportunity to commune with nature and time well spent sketching in the open air. The sketches they made during summer outings would supply material for paintings to be executed in their studios during the winter months. Thomas Cole was also musically talented. He played the flute, and music became part of the social activity of the Hudson River School group when they gathered at Cole’s home in the Catskill Mountains.
Cole did not undervalue the importance of his landscape paintings, which are currently considered more important than his allegorical works. Many of Cole’s landscapes convey a narrative as well as capturing the beauty of nature. The Hunter’s Return, 1845, was painted three years before death cut short his artistic career. The scene depicts two men returning from a successful hunt, the carcass of a deer hung from a pole slung across their shoulders. One hunter has a rifle. The other man waves his hat in greeting toward the women and children near a log cabin. Sun floods the domestic gathering. There are two women, one standing in the doorway in the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun. The other woman stands facing the hunters in a patch of sunlight. She holds a small infant in her arms. Near her a little girl in a red dress restrains a dog as though to keep it from darting forward. A young boy, who walks ahead of the men and carries a long rifle over his shoulder, crosses over a stream on a log bridge halfway between the hunters and the cabin. Deciduous trees in this fall scene are ablaze with red, yellow and orange color. The stream leads to a still lake in the background that reflects surrounding hills. In the distance, against a blue sky dotted with white fleecy clouds, the craggy peaks of a mountain catch the last rays of sunlight. In The Hunter’s Return, Cole captured the essence of life in the wilderness in a narrative landscape painting filled with the warmth of homecoming.
In addition to producing landscape and allegorical paintings, Cole also recorded his impressions in poetry. It was not unusual for artists to express their thoughts in poetic form. Cole’s poems expressed the theme of his series paintings and his love of nature. His poetry was published, including his epic poems based on The Voyage of Life and The Course of Empire series. The poems describe in words the scenes Cole painted in oil. There are over ninety verses in the Voyage of Life epic poem alone. A collection of 105 of his poems entitled, Thomas Cole’s Poetry, compiled and edited by Marshal B. Tymn, was published in 1972.
Cole’s role as leader of the Hudson River School, in addition to his realistically rendered landscapes, established him as an important American artist. When he died of pneumonia at Catskill on February 8, 1848, at the age of forty-seven, he was the leading American landscape artist of his time.