The Course of Empire is a five-part series of paintings created by Thomas Cole in the years 1833-36. It is notable in part for reflecting popular American sentiments of the times, when many saw pastoralism as the ideal phase of human civilization, fearing that empire would lead to gluttony and inevitable decay.
For other uses, see Course of Empire (disambiguation). Portrait of Thomas Cole by Asher B. Durand, 1837. The Course of Empire is a series of five paintings created by Thomas Cole in the years 1833–1836. It is notable in part for reflecting popular American sentiments of the times, when many saw pastoralism as the ideal phase of human civilization, fearing that empire …
· Cole wrote of his idea for the series in a letter to his patron Luman Reed: A series of pictures might be painted that should illustrate the History of a natural scene, as well as be an Epitome of Man—showing the natural changes of Landscape & those effected by man in his progress from Barbarism to Civilization, to Luxury, the Vicious state or state of destruction and …
Thomas Cole "The Course of Empire: Consummation" (3) 1833-1836 Hudson River School Roman architecture replaces Greek building Linear Civilization has taken over; new energy and movement Diana (Goddess of the Hunt) is in middle of left building's pediment (she aka nature is preserved only in statue) Moral issue: Nature is being overrun by civilization
New York CityThe five paintings were specifically designed for a prominent spot in Reed's third floor picture gallery in his New York City mansion at No. 13 Greenwich Street. See Cole's Installation Diagram for the Course of Empire .
Above the Clouds at Sunrise, 1849. Oil on canvas, 69.2 x 102.2 cm. Private collection. But is this just another example of historians imprinting current concerns on the past?
The Consummation of EmpireA detail in the lower right of the third painting in the series, "The Consummation of Empire", shows two children, maybe brothers, fighting, one clad in red and the other in green - the colours of banners of the two contending forces in "Destruction," which thus might depict a foreshadowed civil war.
The Consummation of Empire is one of a sequence of five paintings entitled The Course of Empire commissioned by Cole's patron Luman Reed, created between 1833 and 1836.
The Course of Empire is a series of five paintings created by Thomas Cole in the years 1833–1836. It is notable in part for reflecting popular American sentiments of the times, when many saw pastoralism as the ideal phase of human civilization, fearing that empire would lead to gluttony and inevitable decay.
It is by Thomas Cole (February 1, 1801 – February 11, 1848), an English-born American artist who is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School. Rome is collapsing in one giant cataclysm — drowning, suicide, homicide, every other-cide, fires, floods, and more.
Thomas ColeThe Course of Empire - Destruction / ArtistThomas Cole was an English-American painter known for his landscape and history paintings. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century. Cole's work is known for its romantic portrayal of the American wilderness. Wikipedia
Thomas Cole - 142 artworks - painting.
Thomas Cole was an English-brought into the world American painter known for his landscape and history paintings. One of the major nineteenth-century American painters, he is viewed as the originator of the Hudson River School, an American art development that flourished in the mid-nineteenth century.
“The most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wildness,” wrote the painter Thomas Cole (1801–48) in an 1836 essay. “It is the most distinctive because in civilized Europe the primitive features of scenery have long since been destroyed or modified.”
Thomas Cole (1801-1848) was an American artist and early environmentalist. Cole founded the first major art movement of the United States, now known as the Hudson River School of landscape painting.
Frederic Edwin ChurchAsher Brown DurandRobert S. DuncansonJames Cole YoungThomas Cole/Influenced
Thomas ColeThe Course of Empire - Destruction / ArtistThomas Cole was an English-American painter known for his landscape and history paintings. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century. Cole's work is known for its romantic portrayal of the American wilderness. Wikipedia
Thomas Cole - 142 artworks - painting.
Thomas Cole was an English-brought into the world American painter known for his landscape and history paintings. One of the major nineteenth-century American painters, he is viewed as the originator of the Hudson River School, an American art development that flourished in the mid-nineteenth century.
Thomas Cole | The Course of Empire: The Consummation of Empire | American | The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Course of Empireis a five-part series of paintings created by Thomas Colein the years 1833–36. It is notable in part for reflecting popular American sentiments of the times, when many saw pastoralismas the ideal phase of human civilization, fearing that empire would lead to gluttony and inevitable decay. The theme of cycles is also one that Cole returned to frequently, such as in his The Voyage of Lifeseries. All the paintings are 39.5 inches by 63.5 inches (100 cm by 161 cm) except The Consummation of Empirewhich is 51" by 76" (130 cm by 193 cm).
A direct source of literary inspiration for The Course of Empirepaintings is Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage(1812–18). Cole quoted lines from Canto IV in his newspaper advertisements for the series:
The first series is his most famous, Course of Empire. ( Our own chapter on Thomas Cole includes each installment and I suggest taking a quick look there before continuing.)
Cole, Emerson, and other American Romantics began to see a tighter link between oak trees, grass, and the invisible world. Something about civilization began to seem more distant from the divine than the natural world. This feeling became increasingly emphasized just as the Industrial Revolution was reshaping the United States and Jacksonian democracy was stretching the extent of the young nation into something more akin to an empire. The new railroads being built across the Eastern states and the Eerie Canal became two key touchstones for artists and intellectuals wary of how quickly the nation was growing.
The key requirement, in this new sense of the sublime, is that it occasions something revelatory—anything can become an oracle at any moment . Emerson would become the greatest spokesman for this new mystical understanding of the sublime.
Landscape painters, artists, and travel writers would evoke this sublimity when referring to “cataracts, earthquakes, fires, storms, thunder, volcanoes.” Immanuel Kant, in Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), famously connects this sense of the sublime with pure reason. Whereas the “beautiful” corresponds to our everyday understanding of right relations, order, and what’s fitting for natural objects, the “sublime” corresponds to our capacity for freedom. It also suggests an invisible divinity beyond nature.
The context of Industrialization, with projects like the railroad and Eerie Canal, provide an interpretive framework for making sense of the search for wilderness purity we often find in American Romanticism. Critics such as William Cronon point out that a growing ecological consciousness emerged in response to Industrialization. In fact it’s possible to view picturesque paintings such as Cole’s View on the Catskill, Early Autumn, as an elegy to the disappearing frontier and lament about 19th-century capitalism. Cole was not literally painting what he saw, but rather what he wished he was still able to see. Cronon argues:
When Cole painted this scene the horizon already looked closer to what we find in his 1843 painting, River in the Catskills (Fig. 2).
In 1836, Thomas Cole published his manifesto on how to “read” nature, titled “ Essay on American Scenery .” In that famous text, he argues that
After 1827 Cole maintained a studio at the farm called Cedar Grove, in the town of Catskill, 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 owner's, and became a year-round resident. Thomas and Maria had five children. Cole's daughter Emily was a botanical artist who worked in watercolor and painted porcelain. Cole's sister, Sarah Cole, was also a landscape painter; the two were close.
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 the New-York Historical Society and the four-part The Voyage of Life.
Thomas and Maria had five children. Cole's daughter Emily was a botanical artist who worked in watercolor and painted porcelain. Cole's sister, Sarah Cole, was also a landscape painter; the two were close.
Cole's daughter Emily was a botanical artist who worked in watercolor and painted porcelain. Cole's sister, Sarah Cole, was also a landscape painter; the two were close. Additionally, Cole held many friendships with important figures in the art world including Daniel Wadsworth, with whom he shared a close friendship.
Cole was an entrant in the design competition held in 1838 to create the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, 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.
Begin class by reading a quotation from the famous British Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788–1824), who profoundly influenced Cole to the extent that the artist used Byron’s lines to promote the series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA2bnof3-D8: This is a link to the documentary The Course of Empire: Thomas Cole's Warning to America by Pennsylvania Art Professor Robb Bomboy on YouTube.
American Founders, particularly those who were college graduates, with classical educations grounded in the study of antiquity recognized that no polity is immune from eventual decline and fall, but attempted to design a system that would preserve a republican form of government as long as possible.
The assumption is that students will have no prior knowledge of Thomas Cole or his paintings. However, it is expected that they will be familiar with the generalization that nations do rise and fall, and to date, there is no evidence one nation’s particular political system has proven impervious to events and to time.