Thomas Cole | |
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| Born | (1801-02-01)February 1, 1801 Bolton le Moors,Lancashire, England |
| Died | February 11, 1848(1848-02-11) (aged 47) Catskill, New York, U.S |
| Known for | Painting,oil on canvas |
| Notable work | The Titan's Goblet The Course of Empire The Oxbow The Voyage of Life among others... |
| Movement | Hudson River School |
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Thomas Cole (February 1, 1801 – February 11, 1848) was an English-born American artist and the founder of theHudson River School art movement.[1][2] Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for hisromantic landscape andhistory paintings. Influenced by European painters, but with a strong American sensibility,[3] he was prolific throughout his career and worked primarily withoil on canvas. His paintings are typically allegoric and often depict small figures or structures set against moody and evocative natural landscapes. They are usually escapist, framing the New World as a natural eden contrasting with the smog-filled cityscapes ofIndustrial Revolution-era Britain, in which he grew up.[4][5] His works, often seen as conservative, criticize the contemporary trends ofindustrialism,urbanism, andwestward expansion.[3]
Born inBolton le Moors, Lancashire, in 1801,[6] Cole immigrated with his family to the United States in 1818, settling inSteubenville, Ohio. At the age of twenty-two, he moved to Philadelphia and later, in 1825, toCatskill, New York, where he lived with his children and wife until his death in 1848.[7]
Cole found work early on as an engraver. He was largely self-taught as a painter, relying on books and by studying the work of other artists. In 1822, he started working as a portrait painter and later on, gradually shifted his focus to landscape.[8]
In New York, Cole sold three paintings to George W. Bruen,[9] who subsequently financed a summer trip to theHudson Valley where the artist produced landscapes featuring theCatskill Mountain House, the famousKaaterskill Falls, the ruins ofFort Putnam, and two views ofCold Spring.[10][11] Returning to New York, he displayed fivelandscapes in the window of William Colman's bookstore; according to theNew York Evening Post the two views of Cold Spring were purchased by A. Seton, who lent them to theAmerican Academy of the Fine Arts annual exhibition in 1826. This garnered Cole the attention ofJohn Trumbull,Asher B. Durand, andWilliam Dunlap. Among the paintings was a landscape calledView ofFort Ticonderoga from Gelyna. Trumbull was especially impressed with the work of the young artist and sought him out, bought one of his paintings, and put him into contact with a number of his wealthy friends[6] including Robert Gilmor ofBaltimore andDaniel Wadsworth ofHartford, who became important patrons of the artist.
Eighty-nine of Cole's paintings were exhibited at theNational Academy of Design between its founding in 1825 and Cole's death in 1848. Five of his works were engraved and published inThe Token and Atlantic Souvenir annualgift book between 1826 and 1842. Historian David S. Lovejoy considers the best to beThe Whirlwind (1837), which Lovejoy said "is unique in its boldness" compared to the predominantly serene landscapes of the period. Published in the 1830 volume, contemporary criticJohn Neal calledChocurua's Curse "beautifully contrived".[12]
Cole was primarily a painter of landscapes, but he also painted allegorical works. The most famous of these are the five-part series,The Course of Empire, which depict the same landscape over generations—from a near state of nature to consummation of empire, and then decline and desolation—now in the collection of theNew-York Historical Society and the four-partThe Voyage of Life. There are two versions of the latter, the 1840 original at theMunson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute inUtica, New York and the 1842 replicas with minor alterations at theNational Gallery in Washington, D.C. Among Cole's other famous works areThe Oxbow (1836),The Notch of the White Mountains,Daniel Boone at his cabin at the Great Osage Lake, andLake with Dead Trees (1825) which is at theAllen Memorial Art Museum.[13] He also paintedThe Garden of Eden (1828), with lavish detail ofAdam and Eve living amid waterfalls, vivid plants, and deer.[14] In 2014, friezes painted by Cole on the walls of his home, which had been decorated over, were discovered.[15]
Cole influenced his peers in the art movement later termed the Hudson River School, especially Asher B. Durand andFrederic Edwin Church. Church studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846, where he learned Cole's technique of sketching from nature and later developing an idealized, finished composition; Cole's influence is particularly notable in Church's early paintings.[16] Cole spent the years 1829 to 1832 and 1841 to 1842 abroad, mainly in England and Italy.[6]
Cole is best known for his work as an American landscape artist. In an 1836[17] article on "American Scenery",[18] he described his complex relationship with the American landscape in esthetic, emotional, and spiritual terms. He also produced thousands of sketches of varying subject matter. Over 2,500 of these sketches can be seen atThe Detroit Institute of Arts.
In 1842, Cole embarked on aGrand Tour of Europe in an effort to study in the style of theOld Masters and to paint its scenery. Most striking to Cole was Europe's tallest active volcano,Mount Etna. Cole was so moved by the volcano's beauty that he produced several sketches and at least six paintings of it.[19] The most famous of these works isA View of Mount Etna from Taormina which is a 78-by-120-inch (1,980 by 3,050 mm) oil on canvas. Cole also produced a highly detailed sketchView of Mount Etna which shows a panoramic view of the volcano with the crumbling walls of the ancient Greek theater ofTaormina on the far right.
Cole was also a poet and dabbled in architecture, a not uncommon practice at the time when the profession was not so codified. Cole was an entrant in the design competition held in 1838 to create theOhio Statehouse inColumbus, Ohio. His entry won third place, and many contend that the finished building, a composite of the first, second, and third-place entries, bears a great similarity to Cole's entry.[20]
After 1827 Cole maintained a studio at the farm calledCedar Grove, in the town ofCatskill, New York. He painted a significant portion of his work in this studio. In 1836, he married Maria Bartow of Catskill, a niece of the owners, and became a year-round resident. Thomas and Maria had five children.[a] Cole's daughter Emily was a botanical artist who worked in watercolor and painted porcelain.[21] Cole's sister,Sarah Cole, was also a landscape painter.
Additionally, Cole held many friendships with important figures in the art world including Daniel Wadsworth, with whom he shared a close friendship. Proof of this friendship can be seen in the letters that were unearthed in the 1980s by theTrinity College Watkinson Library. Cole emotionally wrote Wadsworth in July 1832: "Years have passed away since I saw you & time & the world have undoubtedly wrought many changes in both of us; but the recollection of your friendship... [has] never faded in my mind & I look at those pleasures as 'flowers that never will in other garden grow-'"[22]Thomas Cole died at Catskill on February 11, 1848, ofpleurisy.[23] The fourth highest peak in the Catskills is namedThomas Cole Mountain in his honor.[24] Cedar Grove, also known as the Thomas Cole House, was declared aNational Historic Site in 1999 and is now open to the public.[25]
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| External videos | |
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 Cole'sExpulsion from the Garden of Eden,Smarthistory | |
| Cole'sThe Oxbow,Smarthistory |
