Thomas Coleand the Hudson River School

The Titan’s Goblet (Detail). 1833. Thomas Cole.

First created 17 Dec 2010. Version 3.0 - 26 Apr 2016. Jerry Tse. London. All rights reserved. Rights belong to their respective owners. Available free for non-commercial, educational and personal use.

An early works

Kaaterskill Falls. 1826. Oil on canvas 64.x92 cm.

An early works

Cole was born in 1801 and brought up in Bolton, Lancashire, England. He was trained as an engraver in textile design shop but he read a great deal and would be familiar with the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Thomson.

Many of his early works were views of Catskill area.

Picturesque Landscape - Catskill and the Hudson River

Thomas Cole subscribed to the concept of a picturesque landscape by Gilpin, meaning an unexplored wilderness, primitive forests, rugged mountains and impetuous river. Cole had all these elements in many of his painting.

Picturesque Landscape - Last of the Mohican

Last of the Mohican Details

Details of Screen from “The Last of the Mohicans”, Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamermund, 1827.

The Dead Tree

There is always a dead tree in his early painting. It may used to convey a sense of wilderness . Dead is often used as a symbol of mortality.

Between 1829 and 1832, he spent 3 years on visit to Europe.

Europe was an inspiration

The Cascatelli, Tivoli Looking Toward Rome. 1832. Oil on canvas 82x113 cm. Thomas Cole. Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus. Ohio.

Florence was a happy place for Cole.

Mount Etna

The Course of Empire

It is his most famous work which depicts the same landscape over the fortune of an empire from its beginning to its eventual destruction. Was this a warning to the developing America?

On his first trip to Europe, he visited Rome, which inspired Cole to consider the development of The Course of Empire.

Pastoral

Savage

Consummation

Destruction

Desolation

The dawn of an empire without monuments or records.

The Course of Empire: The Savage State. 1836. Oil on canvas 100x162 cm. Thomas Cole. New York Historical Society. New York.

The beginning of culture and technology. Lives without want and greed.

The Course of Empire: The Pastoral or Arcadian State. 1836. Oil on canvas 100x162 cm. Thomas Cole. New York Historical Soc. New York.

Empire building – Nature almost disappeared.

The Course of Empire: The Consummation. 1836. Oil on canvas 100x162 cm. Thomas Cole. New York Historical Society. New York.

Order replaced by chaos and destructions.

The Course of Empire: The Destruction. 1836. Oil on canvas 100x162 cm. Thomas Cole. New York Historical Society. New York.

Cole was not a very good portrait painter. He gave up portrait for landscape.

The Course of Empire: The Destruction (Detail). 1836. 100x162 cm. Thomas Cole. New York Historical Society. New York.

‘Violence and time have crumbled the works of man’, as nature reasserts itself.

The Course of Empire: The Desolation. 1836. Oil on canvas 100x162 cm. Thomas Cole. New York Historical Society. New York.

White Mountains

Techniques & Styles

Small human figures.

Detail painted foliage.

Middle ground with lots of details

Bright & dark areas provided a more dramatic setting.

Leaning tree on near ground.

Dramatic sky.

Schroon Mountain, Adirondacks

Voyage of LifeCole had long been fascinated with the idea of the cycle of life and the cycles of history and in its decaying grandeur. Rome represented in both symbol and reality of old Europe.

This suite of religious paintings was done in 1842. It is an allegory journey of a man down the river of life. We may feel indifferent to these paintings, but these were deeply moving to the viewers at the time. Nearly half a million American flocked to see the paintings in an exhibition, in 1848. The religious overtone of the paintings simply fitted to the piety of its American viewers.

Childhood

Youth

Manhood

Old Age

Voyage of Life was commissioned to depict a pilgrim’s path through life.

Voyage of Life : Childhood. 1839-40. 132x198 cm.

Voyage of Life - Each painting corresponds to a season in a year.

Voyage of Life : Youth. 1840. 133x199 cm.

Voyage of Life – A turn in manhood with turbulence, danger and uncertainty.

Voyage of Life : Manhood. 1840. 132x198 cm.

Finally in Old Age, the man reaches the sea and the promise of eternal salvation.

Voyage of Life : Old Age. 1840. 132x198 cm.

Late works – Mount Etna

Late works – L’Allego

L’Allego. 1845. Oil on canvas 53x122 cm. Thomas Cole. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles. California.

Increasing religious in the early 1840s.

Hudson River SchoolSeveral members of the Hudson River School were instrumental in founding the Metropolitan Museum, New York, including Church, Kensett and Gifford.

The Hudson River School was a informal association of American landscape painters, working in the middle of 19C. Founded by Thomas Cole and influenced by European painters. They gave Romanticism a new theme, by adding moral values and historical subjects.

Cole Durand Kensett Church

Gifford Cropsey Bierstadt Moran

Timeline of American Painters – Hudson River School

Frederic Edwin Church - The most admired of the Hudson River School Painter

Asher Brown Durand – He was very close to Thomas Cole, who

wrote to him regularly.

John Frederick Kensett – One of the seascape painters

Sanford Robinson Gifford - Known for emphasis on light (Luminism)

Albert Bierstadt

Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite Valley. 1872. 35x49 cm. Albert Bierstadt.

Jasper Francis Cropsey died in anonymity but was rediscovered in 1960.

Thomas Moran – Well-known as a member of a team that explored Yellowstone.

Comparison with European Landscape

19C American LandscapeAccording to the art critic, Robert Hughes the

development of American landscape painting was a logical direction. By early 19C, the American Republic was no longer new. The iconic founders of the nation were all dead and very old.

The nation was on a territorial expansion. The unique and marvellous American landscape became the nation’s myth. The landscape painting became an assertion of the national identity.

The first noticeable difference with the European landscape is the very large canvas commonly used by the American landscape painters.

A closer inspection would show that the American landscape paintings is part of the Romanticism movement.

The 19C American landscape style was described as the Luminism. It emphasized on the effects of light on landscape and played close attention to details and the brushstrokes were hidden.

Comparison – American and

European Landscape

Thomas Cole Biography

Cole was born in 1801 and brought up in Bolton, Lancashire, England. He was trained as an engraver in textile design shop but he read a great deal and would be familiar with the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Thomson.

In 1818, his family emigrated to the United States, when he was 17. He was able to begin to earn a living by making wood-engraving.

Soon, he took up painting and began his interest in painting landscape.

By 1825, he moved to New York city and sold 3 paintings to George W Bruen, who financed a summer trip to the Hudson Valley, where he visited the Catskill Mountain and painted the Kaaterskill Falls.

Cole influenced his artistic peers, especially Asher B Durand and Frederic Edwin Church, who studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846. Thomas Cole is often regarded as the founder of the Hudson School of Painting.

In 1829 he travelled to London, where he met Thomas Lawrence and Turner. In 1831 he travelled to Paris and to Florence. He stayed in Europe for 3 years before returning to the US.

From 1841 to 1842, he revisited Europe, staying in London, Paris and the Alps.

In 1848, Cole died at Catskill. The 4th highest peaks in the Catskills is named after him. He was the best-known American artist at the time of his death and mourned by everyone who had the slightest affiliation with arts.

Thomas Cole. 1838 by Asher B Durand

Thomas Cole Timeline

Cole was the first American painter, who saw the power of landscape painting to elevated the spirit of morality and bring humankind closer to the Creator. This approach to painting is uniquely an American invention. This lies the contribution of Thomas Cole to the development of American painting.

Conclusion

In the early 19C, in contrast with Europe’s anti-clericalism, American was experiencing a religious revival, which saw millions of followers and led to the formation of new churches. Linked to the idea of Awakening was the return to a ‘purer’ or ‘primitive’ form of Christianity, based on the Bible alone. Many saw this, the Second Great Awakening heralded a new age before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The Second Great Awakening

The philosophy of Romanticism is essentially a reaction against the Age of Reason, with its foundation on the Enlightened philosophy. It also a rejection of the Industrial Revolution, which was build on the scientific methods and on objective measurements.

Romanticism

Romanticism is label given to a group of artists, musicians and literary writers, that spanned around 1790 and 1830.

Romanticism emphasizes the view of emotion as a authentic source of experience, which help humankind to see the greatness beyond calculation, measurement or imitation. Romanticism also sees the futility of humankind up against the overwhelming power of nature. Nature is not there to be tamed.

The Hudson River School of painting should be seen as an artistic movement, developed under these cultural environments.

Amongst the newly founded churches were the Disciples of Christ, the Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventist and the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada.

Music – Excerpt Antonin Dvorak, New World Symphony, Symphony No 9 in E minor. Op 95. Second Movement – Largo. Written during his visit to the United States from 1892 to 1895.

The End

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The American Painters