The Course of Empire

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The Course of Empire ( German  The path of the Empire ) is a 1836 of completed five-part series of paintings of the American landscape painter Thomas Cole , the most important representative of the Hudson River School . The images follow a clear, dramatic narrative and depict in slightly different landscape excerpts - each recognizable feature is a striking cliff in the background - the development of a civilization from barbarism through its heyday to the violent dissolution and the associated demise and play on the biological nature of history (i.e. the transience of their epochs). Equipped with an exuberant allegorical symbolism, the cycle, which - according to the respective position of the sun - runs through a day, shows the changing relationship between humans and nature and the military, among other things.

Cole drew inspiration for this work primarily from a three-year trip through Europe, during which he saw countless paintings by other romantics in museums, as well as cultivated artistic exchange and visited Roman ruins in Italy . This evidence of past cultures in particular fascinated him and influenced his later work, especially The Course of Empire , in that he wanted to show that every empire, no matter how powerful it is, will one day fade and fall apart. At the same time, the cycle illustrates Cole’s fear of the US’s growing obsession with progress at the expense of nature and reflects predominant religious, artistic, scientific and socio-political ideas within US culture of the 1830s.

The title of the painting series comes from the 19th century poem Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America , which George Berkeley wrote in 1726. It alludes to five stages of civilization. The last stanza begins with the line " Westward the course of empire takes its way " and prophesies that the coming empire will arise in America.

The cycle

“Every state structure, no matter how well established, bears the seeds of its destruction: And, although they grow and perfect themselves for a certain time, they will soon be visibly leaning towards their decline. Every hour of their existence is one less hour that they have to endure. "

- Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1738)

I The Savage State

The Savage State (Thomas Cole)
The Savage State
Thomas Cole , 1834
Oil on canvas
100.33 x 161.29 cm
New-York Historical Society

The cycle opens with the painting The Savage State (de .: The wild / primitive / uncivilized state ), which reveals a view of a wild , unspoilt natural landscape. Cole introduces two important fixed points here: On the one hand, the river, which flows to the left in the right half of the picture in the direction of a sea bay, and on the other, a centrally arranged, prominent high cliff on its right bank in the background. A boulder that can be seen from afar rests on it, which is largely responsible for the recognition value of this formation. In the course of the following images, Cole will always shift the viewer's point of view further downstream, but the representation of the cliff runs like a red thread through the cycle. The picture is obviously a morning snapshot, as the sun rises over the sea while the clouds of a severe storm slowly move away on land. From the lake, some wafts of mist waft up the hills on the shore. The artist himself emphasized in a letter to his client Luman Reed regarding his idea of ​​the picture:

"There must be a flashing chiaroscuro, and the spirit of motion pervading the scene, as though nature was just springing from chaos."
"There has to be a lighting up chiaroscuro , as well as the spirit of movement that pervades the scene, as if nature is just emerging from chaos."

The entire lower half of the picture is kept very dark and especially in the foreground rocky and overgrown protrusions cast threatening shadows, which reinforce the impression of an untamed and possibly dangerous, but at least eerie and not yet fully developed nature. The painting shows the beginnings of a civilization, which may have its origins in the settlement of pointed wigwams in the clearing , apparently created by clearing , on a plateau on the right bank of the river - seen on the right edge of the picture. Some canoes in the river suggest that the residents have already mastered the art of shipbuilding - albeit primitive - and thus may have a greater radius of transport and movement. In the left half of the picture at the foot of the group of trees stands out a hunter clad in fur with a bow and arrow , who is hunting a fleeing deer and has already hit it once. The animal is just jumping over the course of the stream at the lower edge and running towards a pentimento - a trail of a layer below that shimmers through the oil paint. Originally, Cole had placed another hunter there with a bow and arrow, but then painted it over. The aging process of the color pigments now makes this correction visible. Aside from the loner, Cole also painted a troop of hunters consisting of at least four men, possibly intended to show that the people have a pronounced social behavior and can also work together effectively. The aim of this group, located on a ledge a little to the left of the center of the picture, is also a deer, which was caught some distance in the lower right corner by several hunting dogs on a cliff towering over the river. The corresponding doe can escape.

The gloomy mood of the picture gives the impression that survival in the wilderness cannot yet be taken for granted and that people always have to laboriously wrest from it what is necessary for their own existence. At the same time, the sunrise painted in warm colors and the slowly retreating thunderclouds symbolized a successful future for the people.

II The Arcadian or Pastoral State

The Arcadian or Pastoral State (Thomas Cole)
The Arcadian or Pastoral State
Thomas Cole , 1834
Oil on canvas
100.33 x 161.29 cm
New-York Historical Society

The second painting is entitled The Arcadian or Pastoral State (de .: The Arcadian or Rural State ) and shows a completely different, much more developed image of civilization. The position of the viewer has been shifted further downstream and is now on the left bank of the river , immediately before its mouth - this can be seen, among other things, on the cliff with the boulder, which rises in the left half of the picture on the right bank of the river.

The painting is dominated by a mountain rising some distance in the background with a split peak, which rises above the late morning haze of the spring or early summer day into the clear blue sky. With a few exceptions, the wilderness has given way to a cultivated landscape and all of the animals shown are obviously domesticated as farm animals or pets . For example, a herd of sheep can be seen in the center of the picture , while an ox is harnessed to a plow on the left edge . Only the lower left corner looks a bit left in its original state. The old man with a white beard sitting there on a tree trunk, who appears to be sketching a geometric problem in the sand with a stick, can be seen as a connecting element with the first painting - that is, as the last witness of the past. On a ledge above the water - relatively in the middle of the picture - stands a temple made of megaliths . Smoke rises from inside, which presumably points to offerings made there. The depictions of children dancing in the meadow on the right, numerous flowering plants along the landscaped paths, and a small boat-building workshop on the river bank - the primitive canoes in the first picture have been developed into more advanced boats that give a premonition of future sea trade and expansion of the empire - convey the image of a carefree society. This impression is reinforced by the woman in the right half of the picture in a white robe who dominates the foreground. With her hand spindle and her skirt , she possibly symbolizes clotho , whose task as one of the three moirs of Greek mythology is to spin the thread of life . In addition, the radiance of her clothing emphasizes the purity and peacefulness of the people depicted. A few meters further along the path a boy is drawing a primitive, childlike picture of the woman on a stone bridge. This can be interpreted as an attempt to reveal the origins of painting - a popular challenge among artists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The scene alludes to the legend of Giotto di Bondone , whose talent was supposedly discovered in such a situation. By placing his initials directly below the boy, Cole may also want to create a self-identification with the boy; after all, its discovery by John Trumbull in 1825 was also very surprising. Another possible interpretation is that Cole wanted to use the stick figure to indicate his own problems when painting people, which he often had as a landscape painter.

There are also some indications in the painting of a future development of civilization contrary to the current state. For example, Cole placed an obviously severed tree stump on the right edge of the picture , which stands as a harbinger of the complete control and suppression of nature by humans, which culminates in the following painting. In addition, on the left edge in the lower third there are two riders on horses, the one in front wearing a military-style helmet, and a little to the left of the center of the picture, also in the lower third, a single soldier in full equipment who is just emerging from behind a ledge. Both motives point to the future military development, a violent territorial expansion and the associated possible imminent armed conflicts.

With The Arcadian or Pastoral State, Thomas Cole created the image of a scenic idyll in which people live in harmony with flora and fauna . The name of the painting already suggests that Cole was based on the idealized image of Arcadia , a landscape in the center of the Greek Peloponnese , which was transfigured as the location of the Golden Age as early as the Hellenistic period . Unencumbered by arduous work and social pressure to adapt, the people there could live in nature as contented and happy shepherds. This topic was taken up in various ways by numerous artists up to the early modern period - including in shepherd and bucolic poetry .

III The Consummation of Empire

The Consummation of Empire (Thomas Cole)
The Consummation of Empire
Thomas Cole , 1836
Oil on canvas
129.54 x 193.04 cm
New-York Historical Society

Cole titled his third cycle painting The Consummation of Empire (de .: The completion of the empire ). At lunchtime on a sunny summer day, the viewer is now to the right of the river mouth, on the banks of which a prosperous and highly developed city has emerged which is currently experiencing its heyday.

On both sides of the water there are numerous large buildings made of white marble with long rows of columns, in the background the mouth is marked by two beacons and in the foreground a bridge spans the river. The building dominating the left half of the picture is a high, multi-level temple. According to the location, it is presumably a successor to the megalithic construction of the second picture. In front of it is another “archetypal” pillar temple, the sweeping open stairs of which extend to the water. This has a flat triangular gable , which is provided with an allegorical sculpture: Cole's depiction of the central figure was very much based on the Diana of Versailles , a statue of the Roman goddess of hunting Diana , which he made during his trip to Europe from 1830 to 1832 in Paris Had seen the Louvre . The hunting scenes are reminiscent of the origin of civilization in the first picture. In some places in the city, smoke rises from altars or fire bowls and the entire scene is dominated by luxury, decadence, exuberance and opulence - the ostensible, apparently separated private area of ​​a family with its large fountain guarded by soldiers is especially emphasized. What is striking is the mix of styles which Cole used in this painting. So he decided to display both Doric and Corinthian columns; some viaducts , the arched bridge and the terraces look Roman and an Egyptian sphinx rests on a stone ledge of the temple stairs that protrudes into the water .

All the open spaces in the city, stairs, streets, plinths and balconies are populated by countless people, fanfares are blown and numerous splendidly decorated ships with Latin sails cruise on the water . The occasion of the omnipresent celebrations is evidently a triumphal procession which is just passing the bridge and which is led by a red-robed ruler crowned with a laurel wreath , whose carriage is harnessed to an elephant. A victory in a significant battle may be celebrated, because the golden statues under which the procession passes, with their armor, spears, swords and shields, indicate that the people depicted are a militarily armed civilization. The overall picture of the militarily successful people is rounded off by a statue of Minerva overlooking the scenery , which dominates the right half of the picture, as it - supported by columns - protrudes from a terrace into the blue sky. In her right hand she holds a winged representation of Victoria . This combination of these two Roman goddesses - Minerva as the goddess of wisdom and tactical warfare as well as the guardian of knowledge and Victoria as the personification of victory and guardian of the empire - stands, as the title of the picture suggests, for the completion or the perfect success of the empire .

A recurring motif in this painting is the absolute dominance of humans over nature, or rather the complete suppression of the latter. The prominent cliff on the right edge of the picture is largely reclaimed and cultivated, as are the trees artificially planted in the gardens of the palaces and temples - which are particularly reminiscent of the hanging gardens of the Semiramis on the left bank - and the planted vases, several of which are in the fourth Quadrants can be seen reinforce the impression that botany is only tolerated in controllable, narrowly defined frameworks. The white vase below the banner hanging from the marble platform is modeled on the Hellenistic Borghese crater in the Louvre. Similar to the previous painting, Cole once again made a small reference to the impending fate of the empire or the city: two children seem to be playing with each other at the water basin of the large fountain in the foreground. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that one of the boys is sinking the other's miniature boat into the water with a stick.

IV Destruction

Destruction (Thomas Cole)
Destruction
Thomas Cole , 1836
Oil on canvas
100.33 x 161.29 cm
New-York Historical Society

Destruction (en .: destruction ), the fourth painting has almost the same perspective as the third - with the difference that the position of the artist was moved back and in the middle of the river a bit. This enables a broader view of what is happening. For example, it can now be seen that the long row of columns on the right bank belongs to a large palace and that the bridge apparently consists of two sections, which start on both sides from a fortified base complex protruding into the middle of the river. Only the left part of the crossing can be seen in this painting. On the left side of the picture, the temple with its golden dome can also be seen on the slope; In addition, the two lighthouses still exist, although the one on the right has collapsed.

It depicts the storming, looting and destruction of the city - which may indicate a similar situation throughout the entire Reich. It is believed that Cole was referring to the sack of Rome in 455 by the Vandals . The apocalyptic drama of the scenery in the late afternoon is underlined by a change in the weather compared to the two previous pictures: the water has been churned by apparently stormy winds and distant weather lights penetrate through Nimbostratus clouds in the background . It cannot be said with certainty whether the invaders reached the city by sea or attacked it on land. Countless armed soldiers in various ships could, however, point to the former version. It seems clear that all escape routes have been cut off for the city dwellers. Many therefore try to flee downstream in ships. Chaos reigns on the plinths of the harbor walls and numerous lifeless bodies are floating in the water. The bridge over the river has at least partially collapsed - possibly due to the collision of a ship. A wooden temporary structure has been placed over the gap that has arisen, but it barely withstands the weight of the masses and bends. In the crowd, people rush into the river or try desperately to cling to the wooden planks. In the painting, Cole very explicitly depicts the atrocities of the invaders. So are about blood laugh and see -rinnsale, severed limbs and victims, which put an arrow in the throat. The invading troops are obviously marching through the city, pillaging. This is indicated on the one hand by the omnipresent massive smoke development and the flames leaping from the upper floors of the palace on the right bank of the river - but also by the soldier who has turned away from the battle at the foot of the statue and is striving towards the palace with a torch in his hand . At least two ships have also caught fire and are unable to maneuver on the water. It appears that the soldiers are exclusively attackers, defending troops are not recognizable. Civilians appear to be killed or ill-treated indiscriminately. In their fear, some residents plead for help. This is particularly evident on the steps of the large harbor steps in the right third of the picture. There a woman, with a killed toddler lying at her feet, stretches her hands up in despair and seems to be worshiping the marble monumental statue. The statue, which - based on the Borghesian fencer - shows a warrior striving forward and reminds of the hunter in the first cycle picture, has already suffered severe damage. Among other things, his head was cut off, which is now a few meters away next to a well.

As in The Arcadian or Pastoral State , the central element of the painting is once again a woman in a white robe. It is placed exactly in the middle in the lower quarter of the picture and seems to want to evade the access of a soldier chasing it by jumping from the quay wall. He can take hold of her red coverall, but whether the woman manages to escape and whether she survives the jump is left to the beholder to interpret. While the color of her clothes in the second cycle painting was still symbolic of the carefree and purity of an entire civilization, she now makes her the final personification of hope for the city. Accordingly, her death would also mean the certain downfall of the empire. A second possibility for interpretation lies in the moral and instructive approach of Cole's painting: According to this, the woman could be the only person who lived virtuously in the decadence, excess and exuberance of the previous epoch.

V desolation

Desolation (Thomas Cole)
Desolation
Thomas Cole , 1836
Oil on canvas
100.33 x 161.29 cm
New-York Historical Society

Many years later, the fifth painting Desolation (de .: abandonment ) opens a final view of the scenery. Civilization fell a long time ago and the once prosperous city is in ruins. Numerous ruins line the river banks and nature has largely reclaimed its place. For example, bushes, ferns and ivy overgrow the architectural remains. Animals have also settled in the deserted surroundings: Among other things, a black feathered heron is in the foreground of the right third of the picture , birds nest on the prominent column and a deer stands on a marble block below the dilapidated temple on the left bank of the river - a connecting element to the first painting in which the deer was hunted.

Although Cole makes it clear that nature can survive even without human influences and ultimately even outlasts them, the ruins exude a melancholy grandeur. The painting reflects a peaceful calm, and the moon rises over the horizon in the pale autumn twilight - which symbolically ends the cycle that has run through a day. The large column in the foreground reflects the last rays of the sun setting behind the viewer.

background

Emergence

Thomas Cole was a successful landscape painter towards the end of the 1820s, who was particularly famous for his panoramas of the Hudson River and who also distinguished himself as the founder of the so-called Hudson River School . However, he developed ambitions to use the landscape representation only as a basis and framework for a higher purpose and around 1827 he designed a cycle for the first time that should show the rise and fall of a civilization. A few years later he began to sketch out his ideas and develop them further. He tried unsuccessfully to convince the patron Robert Gilmor from Baltimore of his plans.

Finally, towards the end of 1832, immediately after returning from his European trip, he met the influential New York merchant and art patron Luman Reed , who had made his fortune with a clothing wholesaler and was able to retire that same year as a result. He had been a sponsor of various painters for a long time - in addition to Cole, he also supported Asher Brown Durand , William Sidney Mount , Samuel FB Morse and George Whiting Flagg - and in some cases he was also close friends with them. Due to the lack of museums and galleries in the city, Reed decided to use the fortune he had acquired to put together a high-quality art collection and make it available to the public. On the third floor of his townhouse on Greenwich Street - not far from Cole's studio, which was on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway - he then set up a two-room gallery that was open to everyone one day a week. The meetings of the Sketch Club had already taken place there since 1829, from which the Gentlemen's Club Century Association later formed. Leading artists, writers and collectors came together in the roundtables and discussed current affairs and intellectual problems in art. Reed financed Durand the production of a series of paintings by the first seven Presidents of the United States , which should quickly give his young collection a historically relevant claim. At the same time, he also had a pièce de résistance - an outstanding major work - in mind for his collection. Cole was supposed to deliver this with his cycle.

To distract himself from history painting, while working on the cycle View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, Cole created after a Thunderstorm known as The Oxbow .

At first euphoric, he immediately went to work and tried to implement his sketches and ideas on canvas. In the fall of 1835, however, he began to have doubts about the project. The extensive task was lengthy, fragmented and arduous. Reed noticed his favorite's change of mood and suggested that work on the cycle be interrupted and instead paint something that was more in keeping with Cole's temperament as a landscape painter. This work was then to be presented in April 1836 at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design . However, Cole replied by letter that he felt obliged to complete the work because of Reed's extensive financial support, that he wanted to finish the last painting and then show it in the exhibition. Reed did not like the idea because he feared that it would make the content and design of the cycle public in advance. Instead, he suggested that Cole should paint a picture similar to the second cycle painting, which is dominated by the landscape. In March 1836 the painter agreed to this proposal and wrote to his financier:

“Fancy pictures [a fixed term describing genre scenes that include a plot line] rarely sell & they usually take more time than [landscape] sketches, so I decided to paint one of the latter. I've already started a view of Mount Holyoke - it's one of the best scenes I have in my sketchbook & is very well known - it will be original and, I think, effective - I couldn't get her [actually his] second picture find a very similar model & time wouldn't allow me to come up with one. "

He also mentioned that he would use a larger canvas because he could not set up a smaller frame in the short time that was available, and that he felt compelled to make a meaningful artistic statement with the one picture presented. The painting that ultimately emerged from this creative process was View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm , better known as The Oxbow . Then Cole continued his work on The Course of Empire . In particular, he had difficulties with painting people, with which he had very seldom dealt with as a landscape painter; however, the cycle required him to depict countless people. So Cole turned to Asher Brown Durand and asked him to send him a model of a "little fighting gladiator" to help him compose the figures. Some of these models are still owned by the Cedar Grove Collection today.

Installation Diagram for the Course of Empire (Thomas Cole)
Installation Diagram for the Course of Empire
Thomas Cole , 1833
Fountain pen and brown ink over pencil on broken white vellum paper
25.08 x 33.33 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts

Cole's sketches and preliminary drawings that have survived and illustrate his basic ideas and background ideas are interesting for looking at how the cycle came into being. They also show how obsessed he was with creating the right visual effects for his dramatic series. The sketch for Destruction (now in the Detroit Institute of Arts ) shows, for example, that originally a huge lion fountain was supposed to dominate the right front half of the picture. In the final version it was replaced by the damaged statue, which - in keeping with the omnipresent war events - gives the picture a much more restless atmosphere. Only the small lion's head gargoyle in the far right lower corner reminds of the original concept. Also in a sketch, Cole recorded the order in which he wanted the paintings to be arranged and hung around a fireplace in Reed's gallery. The third and largest painting, The Consummation of Empire , was to become the central motif - framed by the rise (first and second picture) of civilization on the one hand and its decline (fourth and fifth picture) on the other.

The financier himself did not live to see the completion: Luman Reed died unexpectedly in 1836 at the age of 49. Despite the grief and painful loss, Cole completed the five paintings at extremely short notice at the request of and encouraged by Reed's family, who had promised him compensation of US $ 5,000 .

Influences

“For most of his life, Cole was torn between nature and culture; like many Europeans, he mostly bowed to the long-lived landscape tradition introduced by Claude Lorrain . The Course of Empire , conceived in Italy, is a [paen] not only in relation to the cyclical nature of civilization, but in relation to the trinity of Claude, JMW Turner and John Martin . Artistic precedents were mixed up in Cole's imagination with nature, which he was passionate about. "

- Barbara Novak

The most significant influence for and on the development of The Course of Empire - which reflects the growing interest among members of the US elite in ancient history - had Cole's first trip to Europe, which he took with William Cullen between June 1, 1829 and November 1832 Bryant undertook. They traveled across the continent, studied in museums in London , Paris , Florence , Rome and Naples, among others , and undertook extensive landscape studies. Especially his stay in Italy brought Cole closer to idealistic topics and ideas. As a typical representative of Romanticism , he also sought to express moral values ​​in his landscape painting and to deal with topics that were previously reserved for history painting .

He was particularly interested in the wild landscapes of the Italian baroque painter Salvator Rosa with their dramatic rocky cliffs, broken trees and stormy skies, which in Cole's eyes as well as in those of numerous other artists of the time illustrated the aesthetic characteristics of grandeur to the best . In the Musée du Louvre in Paris , for example, he discovered Rosas Paesaggio roccioso con cacciatori e guerrieri from 1670. For his first cycle painting The Savage State , in addition to the untamed landscape, he also used a very similar use of natural elements to convey a dramatic impression.

During his trip in Paris, Cole also studied the work of the French landscape painter Claude Lorrain in detail . Like many ambitious landscape painters of his time, Cole Lorrains felt obliged to characteristic, classical scenes: Balanced arrangements of trees and buildings encompass a central landscape that recedes against a light-flooded horizon. An American pioneer of these graceful compositions was Washington Allston , who showed this in particular in his painting Italian Landscape from 1814. Through an intermediary, Allston expressly advised his compatriot to study Lorrain's work during the trip through Europe. When Cole finally stayed in Rome in 1832, he is said to have worked in a studio that Lorrain once used. Later in the 1840s he was also known as the "American Claude". Lorrain's influence on the cycle can be seen, for example, in the light colors, cultivated landscapes and the gentle brushwork that characterize The Arcadian or Pastoral State , as well as individual elements from Port maritime: l'embarquement de la rein Ursula , such as the column-supported port buildings Steps leading to the water can be found in The Consummation of Empire .

Cole found further inspiration for this third cycle painting in William Turner's Dido Building Carthage (also The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire ), which he saw in a London studio in 1829. Recognizable elements include the pillar temple, the river flowing through the city and the children playing with a small ship in the foreground. Cole himself wrote about Turner's work:

" The building of Carthage is a splendid composition & full of poetry. Magnificent piles of architecture, some finished and some incomplete, fill the sides of the picture while the middle of it is a bay or arm of the sea that comes to the foreground, glittering in the light of the sun which rises directly over it. The figures, vessels, sea are very appropriate. The composition very much resembles some of Claude's. "
“ The building of Carthage is a brilliant composition & full of poetry. Magnificent architectural works, some completed and some unfinished, fill the sides of the picture while the center of the picture depicts a bay or an inlet that stretches into the foreground, glittering in the light of the sun rising directly above. The figures, ships, the sea are very useful. The composition is very similar to some of Claude [Lorrain]. "

In addition, Cole met in London with John Constable , a famous British exponent of romantic landscape painting, whose work thrives on the tension between close observation of nature and the neglect of the line in favor of the color effect. The ruins that he visited in Italy, especially in the Campagna Romana , made a special impression on Cole . It was the first evidence of perished civilizations that he saw, as nothing like it exists in the United States. He took up the topic of romantically overgrown ruins in many of his later works, including Desolation .

  • Rosa: Paesaggio roccioso con cacciatori e guerrieri (1670)

  • Allston: Italian Landscape (1814)

  • Turner: The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire (1815)

  • Martin: Pandemonium (1825)

The British painter and printmaker John Martin produced several mezzotint illustrations for John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost in the 1820s . One of them, Pandemonium ( en .: “chaos” or “tumult”, from ancient Greek : παν pan “all” or “whole” and δαίμων daimon “divine being”, see Pandemonium ) from the eponymous chapter, served the panorama painter Robert Burford (* 1791; † 1861) as a template for a painting of the same name. Cole saw this in London in 1829 and apparently drew his inspiration for Destruction from it , which has similar compositional elements - for example the spacious and columnar architecture and a brightly shining, hope-giving figure in the foreground. The swirling clouds and billows of smoke can also be found in both images.

In addition, Cole was influenced by the literature of Edward Gibbons The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire .

Provenance

Before the official handover of the commissioned work, Cole needed short-term financial security and therefore organized a private exhibition of the painting series in the rented area of ​​the Clinton Gallery in the National Academy of Design . He advertised them in the entertainment sections of local newspapers and published a leaflet. In this he used a quote from the story of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by the British poet George Gordon Byron to give the cycle a motto:

There is the moral of all human tales;
'tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First Freedom, and then Glory - when that fails,
wealth, vice, corruption - barbarism at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
hath but one page.

That is the moral of all human stories;
but it is the same test as in the past.
First freedom and then splendor - if this fails,
wealth, vice, corruption - ultimately barbarism.
And the story, with its immeasurably many volumes,
has only one page.

He also wrote an explanatory text for each picture. The exhibition lasted from October 15, 1836 until shortly before Christmas of the same year - the admission price was between 50 cents and one US dollar - and was extraordinarily successful for that time and the most financially profitable in the United States at the time; it also exceeded Cole's previous reputation as a painter.

The paintings remained in the possession of the Reed family until 1844, when their entire collection, including all of Thomas Cole's paintings, was acquired by a group of former partners and investors Reeds, who then founded the New York Gallery of the Fine Arts to make the paintings permanent preserve. When it had to be closed 14 years later for financial reasons, The Course of Empire was donated to the New York Historical Society in 1858 , where the cycle formed the basis for the now renowned collection of American landscape paintings and is still in its possession today . Over the decades, however, the series has been shown temporarily on loan for special exhibitions in numerous galleries and museums, for example in 2002 at Tate Britain in London .

Classification in Cole's other work

At the time The Course of Empire was created, Thomas Cole was already a recognized landscape painter, who in his early artistic creative phase concentrated on using his pictures to work out the individual quality and beauty of real local landscape features with incomparable sensitivity, for example in Sunrise in the Catskill Mountains (1826) or in View in the White Mountains (1827). At first he therefore favored sublime motifs of untouched nature instead of civilizational institutions. He later shifted landscape painting beyond simply describing and retelling a natural scene and raised it to the level of history painting.

In 1832 he sent a painting called A Wild Scene ( Baltimore Museum of Art ) to Robert Gilmor in Baltimore, whom he wanted to win as a sponsor. Previously, he described it as “a large picture which, with suitable primitive figures, represents a romantic land or a perfect state of nature. It's not a scene from a specific country, but a general idea of ​​a wilderness ”. After the financing by Luman Reed was finally secured, The Savage State , the start of the cycle , was created on the basis of this painting . In both pictures, Cole uses turbulent clouds churned up by the storm, a dominant mountain protruding from the clouds and indigenous people on the hunt as motifs. The art historian Ellwood C. Parry notes, however, that the painter had already relocated the framing large foreground tree from A Wild Scene from the right to the left in the preliminary study (The Art Museum, Princeton University ) for Savage State , and also the one The hunter's figure moved from the extreme left to the center. These changes take into account the intended arrangement of the cycle in the gallery, as the viewer's gaze would thereby be directed to the center of the picture and thus also to the center of the following cycle pictures.

What is striking when looking at Cole's oeuvre is that his choice of motifs remained at least similar even after the cycle was completed. This becomes clear, for example, in the diptych The Past and The Present , completed in 1838 , which shows a knight's castle over the centuries. Due to their decay and overgrowth with flora , the subject of the transience of human instruments of civilization becomes clear again. The romantic-melancholy depiction of the ruins in the evening light - similar to Desolation - also reinforces the impression that the recapture of space by nature is a desirable original state. The Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower alludes to this thought , although in this painting an even more direct reference to the last cycle painting was created through the coastal scenery at pale dusk. Apparently shaped by the Roman ruins he had seen in Italy, Cole processed them in numerous pictures. He also picked up the theme from The Consummation of Empire . In The Dream of the Architect , he once again presents a huge palace on the banks of an estuary with long rows of columns and gilded domes, on whose forecourt a large fountain gushes. Once again the composition suggests a nation or empire at the political and social climax of its development, and again Cole combines several architectural styles in a single building. The main building in the background is modeled on the palaces of ancient Egypt, for example - this is illustrated by the two obelisks that stand in front of its main portal on the bank.

  • Cole: A Wild Scene (1832)

  • Cole: The Dream of the Architect or The Architects Dream (1840)

  • Cole: The Past (1838)

  • Cole: The Present (1838)

  • Cole: Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower oder Romantic Landscape with Ruined Tower (1838)

A consideration of The Course of Empire usually provokes a mention of the other famous series of paintings by Thomas Coles - The Voyage of Life . He completed this four-part cycle in 1842, six years after the first. As in The Course of Empire , he again deals with the subject of impermanence, the focus being much more clearly on the mortality of the individual, since the images have a main character. On her allegorical life, which she travels in a boat on a river, she is accompanied by an angel figure and develops from a baby to an old man, for whom the angel in the last painting finally shows the way to heaven.

Reception and evaluation

The contemporary criticism rejected the series mainly for formal reasons; the opinion was often to be found that Cole had lost his creative edge during the trip through Europe. Today the view is mostly expressed that it was not a promising idea in the still young United States - equipped with the countless promises and idealism that are portrayed in the first three pictures - to depict the inevitable end of a society in addition to the rise . Most clients, however, preferred directly recognizable American landscapes anyway, which Cole also supplied them. Although he often emphasized that he was less fond of painting such pictures, these purely realistic landscape paintings are considered to have the same artistic quality as his generally better known works with religious or allegorical accents. However, there were also extremely positive voices that explicitly praised The Course of Empire as an artistic masterpiece. For example, on the occasion of Cole's private exhibition in 1836, the November issue of American Monthly Magazine saw the following review:

"These pictures, as we have heard it observed by a distinguished artist, will hereafter mark a new era in the history of painting. They constitute a grand moral epic; each picture of the series being as perfect in itself as a single book or a finished poem; and the whole together comprising a system which, for completeness and grandeur of conception, may be classed with the nobles works of imagination. "
“These images - from what we have heard from the observations of an eminent artist [an expert] - will hereafter mark a new era in the history of painting. They represent a great moral epic; each painting in the series is as perfect on its own as a book or a completed poem; and all together form a system which, in terms of completeness and sublimity of the conception, can be mentioned in a row with the most magnificent works of imagination. "

Cole's contemporary James Fenimore Cooper , a well-known Romantic writer , was also very impressed by the cycle and illustrated its success in 1849 with the words

"Not only do I consider the Course of Empire the work of the highest genius this country has ever produced, but I esteem it one of the noblest works of art that has ever been wrought."
"I not only consider The Course of Empire to be the work of the greatest genius that this country has ever produced, but also consider it to be one of the best works of art ever created."

The art historian Mary Jane Sobinski-Smith of Western New England University takes the view that the cycle is an allegorical narrative about the development of a civilization within the powerful framework of nature, which is intended to both instruct and warn. Although it illustrates Cole's fear of the Americans' growing obsession with progress at the expense of nature, it is also not just an embodiment of Cole's own philosophy of the spiritual value of nature and its superiority over humanity and its civilizations, but also reflects predominant religious, artistic, scientific, and sociopolitical ideas within US culture of the 1830s. In addition, according to Sobinski-Smith, the pictures reflect ideas found in transcendentalism , association psychology and actualism , as well as conservative visions of the sociopolitical orders of other famous artists, writers and philosophers of the time. On the other hand, Cole's explicitly pessimistic interpretations differ significantly from the views of his contemporaries, who for the most part saw the future of the still young United States as boundless and unreservedly promising. However, Cole makes the implicit suggestion that the nation will be better served if it adhered to its original bucolic tenets rather than indulging in the imperial temptations of commerce, conquest, and colonization. Furthermore, Sobinski-Smith comes to the realization that the tension between the power of nature and the power of man in the cycle pictures creates something that she calls the “Myth of the Land”. This was also portrayed in the literary works of William Bradford , James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson , Henry David Thoreau and Henry Nash Smith .

The experts at Thomas Cole House (registered on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966) in Catskill , New York , also see a political possibility of interpretation: In the 1830s, the United States experienced a period of intense debate and dispute between supporters of the newly founded, Popular Democratic Party and those who still represented the current of the already dissolved, elitist Federalist Party . Rapid economic upswing and industrial growth led to a new distribution of income , extremes of prosperity and socio-political upheavals. Cole identified himself strongly with his aristocratic patrons and supported the federalists of the United States Whig Party , who accused the Democrats of that era of permanently damaging traditional social authorities and the political and economic climate. Some experts, such as the art historian Angela Miller from Washington University in St. Louis , therefore assume that the Caesar -like ruler, who in The Consummation of Empire crosses the bridge in a pompous procession pulled by an elephant, an unflattering - very recognizable for contemporaries - allusion to the then ruling Democratic US President Andrew Jackson . She emphasizes that the figure embodies an idea of ​​imperial rule, which is in contrast to the previous picture The Arcadian or Pastoral State - there the representation of an apparently ancient Greek ideal landscape also implies the corresponding democratic-republican form of government.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mary Jane Sobinski-Smith: Thomas Cole: The Course of Empire ( Memento of 10 February 2006 at the Internet Archive ) (PDF, 60 kB) . Article from 2005, p. 4. Retrieved December 28, 2012
  2. ^ A b Niall Ferguson: Empires on the Edge of Chaos , on informationclearinghouse.info . Retrieved November 17, 2012
  3. ↑ Commentary by Coles to Luman Reed on September 18, 1833; quoted in: Louis Legrand Noble: The Life and Works of Thomas Cole . Black Dome Press, Hensonville 1997, pp. 129-130
  4. ↑ Presentation of The Arcadian or Pastoral State on explorethomascole.org (Thomas Cole House). Retrieved December 30, 2012
  5. ↑ Mary Jane Sobinski-Smith: Thomas Cole: The Course of Empire (PDF; 60 kB) . Article from 2005, p. 7. Retrieved November 10, 2012
  6. ^ Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque: "The Oxbow" by Thomas Cole: Iconography of an American Landscape Painting (PDF; 1.9 MB). In: Metropolitan Museum Journal , Vol. 17, 1982, University of Chicago Press , Chicago , pp. 63-67
  7. ↑ Carter B. Horsley, "Intimate Friends - Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand & William Cullen Bryant," on thecityreview.com . Retrieved November 14, 2012
  8. ↑ Ella M. Foshay: Mr. Luman Reed's Picture Gallery: A Pioneer Collection of American Art . Harry N. Abrams, New York City 1990, ISBN 978-0-8109-3751-2 , p. 135
  9. ↑ a b “About the Series” on explorethomascole.org (Thomas Cole House). Retrieved December 30, 2012
  10. ^ Coles assessment of John L. Morton, Secretary of the National Academy of Design on January 31, 1832; quoted in: Howard S. Merritt: A Wild Scene. Genesis of a Painting , in: Gertrude Rosenthal et al. : Studies on Thomas Cole. An American Romanticist . Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore 1967, p. 35
  11. ↑ Bruce and Bobbie Johnson: "Portrait of Thomas Cole" on hoocher.com . Retrieved December 30, 2012
  12. ↑ "Thomas Cole" on artchive.com , from: Kevin J. Avery et al .: American Paradise. The World of the Hudson River School . Harry N. Abrams, New York City 1987. Retrieved December 30, 2012
  13. ↑ Mary Jane Sobinski-Smith: Thomas Cole: The Course of Empire (PDF; 60 kB) . Article from 2005, p. 24. Retrieved November 10, 2012
  14. ↑ Mary Jane Sobinski-Smith: Thomas Cole: The Course of Empire (PDF; 60 kB) . 2005 essay, p. 2. Retrieved November 10, 2012
  15. ↑ Profile of the cycle , on emuseum.nyhistory.org (New-York Historical Society). Retrieved November 17, 2012
  16. ↑ Angela Miller: Thomas Cole and Jacksonian America. The Course of Empire as Political Allegory . In: Prospects , Vol. 14, October 1989, Cambridge University Press , Cambridge , pp. 65-92

literature

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on January 29, 2013 .