Imagine for a moment you are on a hike through the woods. The sun is barely up as you start your ascent. The air is cool and fresh as you follow a well-worn trail through the trees and over the rocks. You thoroughly enjoy the light breeze of the early morning as glints of sun rays dance through the canopy of trees above. There is a crispness in the air that you cannot find this time of year in the valley below. You see far ahead where the lush forest thins, a clearing slowly coming into view. As you make your way past the last few rows of trees, you suddenly realize you have made it to your destination, a cliff face that overlooks the entire valley. Your breath catches in your throat as you slowly scan the blue-gray haze of the expanse that unfolds before you.
You are enthralled by the untouched natural beauty that unfolds before you. You want to capture it, but you also feel that this scene has something to say, and you need to share it and others like it with the world. Now, I may have lost you there. You may wonder how a scene can convey a message. Yet, artist Thomas Cole was so moved by the American landscape that he initiated a genre of painting in a new world, spoke passionately about it, and even helped start a painting movement. What was Thomas Cole trying to share through all of this?
An Englishman Moved by the New World
In 1825, landscape artist Thomas Cole moved to the United States from England. In the United States, he discovered a new and rapidly changing nation. Cole believed the grandeur of the American landscape and its purity were slowly vanishing before his own eyes. He did not have the benefit of well-worn hiking trails like the one described above. In his time, few Americans were interested in visiting gorges and mountain vistas for sheer pleasure. Yet, for Cole, landscapes became a vehicle on which he created elevated emotions of transcendence. He used oil paint to idealize an era that was nearly gone, and in its wake, he provided a feeling of nostalgia for a pristine, unsullied America (Hughes, 1997, p. 141). Cole knew America before the traces of man were everywhere.
Before Thomas Cole could make his mark as the painter of American landscapes, Americans first needed to develop an appreciation of such paintings, which wasn’t yet commonplace. In the United States, land was viewed as territory, a source of income, and a raw material. The average American viewed the land in practical terms, considering its fertility, the ores it might contain, or the available water supply. It was the English who thought of a land as more than its economic value (Hughes, 1997, p. 142). Cole had a desire for others to appreciate the American landscape. In 1835, Cole shared his famous writing on the subject, “Essay on American Scenery,” with the American Lyceum Society in New York. In it, Cole spoke boldly about this passion. He said that the American scenery, “is a subject that to every American ought to be of surpassing interest…it is his own land; its beauty, its magnificence, its sublimity – all are his; and how undeserving of such a birthright, if he can turn towards it an unobserving eye.” (Ferber, 2009, p. 58) Part of his appreciation for the American landscape may have derived from his early years spent in Europe, a place full of nostalgia for the picturesque scenes that no longer existed. (Powell, 2000, p. 20) Cole’s formative years were spent in his native England among mill towns and the ever-changing face of the Industrial Revolution. (Craven, 2003, p. 200)
Found at Last: The Picturesque Landscape
A love of landscapes began before Cole immigrated to the United States. One of his favorite artists was Claude Lorrain, a French artist known for his pastoral landscapes of the Baroque era. Upon his arrival in the United States, Cole combined his love of the landscape with the vast, untamed nature that surrounded him. He argued that despite a lack of appreciation for landscapes, this vast wilderness could be played to the painter’s advantage. (Hughes, 1997, p. 142)
Creating the picturesque scene was of the utmost importance to Cole (Powell, 2000, p. 20), who found the writings of William Gilpin exceptionally inspiring. Gilpin was an English clergyman, school headmaster, and writer who wrote that the picturesque landscape represented a new kind of aesthetic, characterized by a “peculiar kind of beauty” (Gilpin, 1792) The picturesque scene was pivotal to Cole, perhaps because few existed in the world in which he grew up, or possibly because he finally felt like he had found the world Gilpin described in his writings. Either way, this romantically beautiful, unexplored wilderness of American vistas captured his attention, enabling him to become the first painter to realize the implications of creating the picturesque landscape genre in America.
Cole not only based the aesthetic of his work on the writings of Gilpin, but also sought locations that Gilpin believed were most worthwhile —the banks of rivers. For Thomas Cole, it was the Hudson River that he found rich with opportunity and with easy access, yet not too far away from New York City, where he could sell his art.
The Birth of a Genre
Cole took the concepts developed through his readings of Gilpin and combined them with his awe and wonder of the American landscape. He was not the first artist to paint the American landscape, but he became the most well-known for his approach to the subject matter. Others at the time, such as Thomas Doughty and Alvan Fisher, incorporated poetic, idyllic scenes that featured medieval ruins of Old-World castles. (Craven, 2003, p. 199) These were not welcomed in the same way that Cole’s picturesque, nearly untouched landscapes were.
What prompted Cole to create as he did was due in part to the respite he experienced upon arriving in America. He found the scenery altogether different from that of the Industrial Revolution occurring in England, and he feared that this untamed wonder would soon resemble what he had left behind. This fueled his energy to create. He found eastern Ohio and the Pittsburgh area to be such an inspiration that some considered it akin to a religious devotion. (Craven, 2003, p. 200)
In the creation of his paintings, Cole unified the principles of the picturesque with a doctrine developed from his readings on the subject, drawing on both William Gilpin and Edmund Burke. By combining these theories with the beauty of the scenery that captivated him, he created his unique vision of the American landscape.
So, How Was Cole Communicating?
Cole became strongly associated with the sprawling vistas from the Hudson River Valley and the Catskills. These areas were important to him, but what was it all really about? Was Cole attempting to bring the beauty that he saw to the world with a picturesque, romanticized aesthetic to boot? Was he desiring to record the untamed and unspoiled wilderness of the Hudson River before it was lost? Perhaps yes to both, but it is believed that Cole was communicating much more.
Through creating an Eden-like wilderness for his viewers, Cole offered weary souls a reprieve from the world’s struggles, a natural sanctuary where God Himself could be found. In some of Cole’s early work, he employed a system called Associationism, which was founded by several Scottish philosophers and incorporated symbols designed to engage the viewer. Associationism’s theory held that even if a person did not directly know God, they could develop a knowledge of Him through contemplation of nature. (Craven, 2003, p. 200) Not all of Cole’s paintings were intended to evoke a connection through the symbols placed within them; however, in the paintings that included symbolism, Cole sought to achieve a more profound connection with his audience.
In his 1825 painting entitled “Lake with Dead Trees”, Cole demonstrates his expertise in using a landscape as more than just a representation of nature through the strategic placement of symbolism. Lake with Dead Trees is interpreted to convey the sobering nature of life, its cyclical essence, and how, over time, we all will succumb to the same end: death. (Thomas, 2018). Cole uses the gnarled old tree trunk to draw significant parallels with universal truths. In several of his works, he hopes to help his viewers understand the need for God. (Craven, 2003, p. 200) Cole attempted to convey to his viewers some of the most foundational concepts of life through an ordinary subject matter, landscape painting.
Experiencing God through Nature
Cole not only created paintings of the American landscape, but also, in several of his works, aimed to draw the viewer’s attention to the religious themes he saw represented in nature. Expulsion from the Garden of Eden displays Cole’s attentiveness to religious themes. Cole sought to equate the untamed beauty of the United States’ landscape with the manifestation of God’s will. (Thomas, 2018). Expulsion from the Garden of Eden illustrates the biblical story of Adam and Eve at the very moment they are expelled from the Garden of Eden (Thomas, 2018). The painting is intended to be viewed from right to left, with the Garden of Eden positioned on the right, symbolizing Eden’s location to the east. It depicts Adam and Eve as they exit Eden, but instead of focusing on Adam and Eve themselves, their figures are dwarfed by the grand landscape surrounding them. Cole takes a distinctly different approach to his depiction of this well-known biblical story. Instead of showing Adam and Eve as the shamed subject matter of the paintings, he places them in a grand landscape representative of heavenly power. (Thomas, 2018)
Cole further developed his depiction of moral and religious values through symbolism in his series, titled “The Voyage of Life.” Though he found success in painting straightforward landscapes laden with romanticism, his greater aspiration was to communicate the word of God through sublime and even majestic landscapes. To aid viewers in their understanding of the paintings, Cole wrote explanations to accompany each one in this series. The goal of the text was to serve as a sort of reading companion to the viewers of his art (The Voyage of Life: Childhood). Cole desired to connect with his viewers on a deeper level and did not want them to miss a single symbol that he had placed in his work.
What may have started for Thomas Cole as a journey in rendering a land that was new, magnificent, and beautiful ended with an exploration, a hope, and a deep desire to steer viewers closer to God through his art. Like other artists throughout history, he employed symbolism to draw his viewers closer to what he hoped they would derive from his paintings. In doing so, he created the American Romanticsm Landscape genre and fathered the Hudson River School movement, becoming one of the foremost landscape painters of the nineteenth century.
Bibliography:
Craven, W. (2003). American art: History and culture. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Ferber, L. S. (2009). The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision. Skira Rizzoli.
Gilpin, W. (1792, January 1). William Gilpin: Three essays: On Picturesque Beauty; on picturesque travel; and on sketching landscape. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/350534
Hughes, R. (1997). American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. Alfred A Knopf, INC.
The Voyage of Life: Childhood. Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Childhood, 1842. (n.d.). https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/cole-the-voyage-of-life-childhood.html
Powell, E. A. (2000). Thomas Cole. Harry N. Abrams.
Thomas, G. (2018, May 3). Thomas Cole Paintings, bio, ideas. The Art Story. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/cole-thomas/
Image: Lake with Dead Trees,1825, Thomas Cole
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