THOMAS COLE
Landscape painting was extremely important during the middle of the nineteenth century. One of the leading practitioners of landscape painters in America was Thomas Cole. He visited many places seeking the “natural” world to which he might utilize his direct observations to convey the untainted nature by man to his audience. His works resolved to find goodness in American land and to help Americans take pride in their unique geological features created by God. Thomas Cole inspired many with his brilliant works by offering satisfaction to those seeking the “truth” (realism) through the works of others.
Thomas Cole was born on February 1, 1801 in Bolton, Lancashire, England. Due to financial problems his family endured, Cole, at the ripe old age of just fourteen, had to find work to assist with the family needs. He entered the work force as a textile printer and wood engraver in Philadelphia. In 1819, Cole returned to Ohio where his parents resided. Here, a portrait painter by the name of Stein, would become Cole’s primary teaching vehicle and inspiration for his oil techniques we’ve come to be familiar with. During this time, Cole was extremely impressed by what he saw in the landscapes of the New World and how different they were from the small town of England from whence he hailed. Self taught, art came naturally to Cole.
One day Cole set out to observe nature and it’s wilderness. He began painting pictures by first making oil sketches of American rocks, trees, sunsets, plants, animals, as well as distant Indians. From these sketches he formed several paintings. Most famous for his allegorical collection called the “The Course of Empire” and is well-known for his Landscape paintings, “The Oxbow,” “The Woodchopper,” and “The Clove, Catskills.”
In January of 1826, Cole had become to be known for founding the National Academy of Design. During this time, many would comission him to paint pictures of American scenery, but his primary desire and goal, he says, was to create a “higher style of landscape that would express moral or religious tones.” In 1836, Cole married Maria Barstow and settled in Catskill, New York. Catskill would obviously become the inspiration for his piece, “Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River”. From these paintings he influenced many other artists. Among these artists were Frederick Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt.
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...s Cole did an excellent job in portraying realism in his paintings. He helped America vision a society with possibilities, opportunities, and abundance of resources. Not only did Cole inspire the nation; he also influenced many artists who are now heading Cole’s way. Cole was a brilliant man of great intelligence who stole the hearts of many. In an article written by William Church Bryant, Bryant explains, “We might dream in his funeral oration on Cole, that the conscious valleys miss his accustomed visits and that autumnal glories of the woods are paler because of his departure.” Cole died on February 11, 1848 due to an illness and was remembered by many whom he helped to see the true vision of America.
Bibliography
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Fully skilled in many fields Charles Peale was known as an American Leonardo. Living from 1741-1827 Peale was the eldest of 5 children who grew up in Chestertown Maryland (Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography). Because of being a scientist, artist, saddler, watchmaker, silversmith, upholsterer, soldier, politician and inventor, Charles Peale earned the title of a true enlightenment man. Inventing a new type of spectacles, porcelain false teeth, a steam bath and a stove that consumed its own smoke, Peale certainly was superiorly innovative (Strickland 72). While being trained in the trade of saddle making, Peale decided, at the age of 21, that painting would be a better route to take. In 1776 he settled in Philadelphia and during the American revolutionary war, Peale served as a militia officer from 1776-1778 and continued to paint throughout this whole time. With his three wives, Rachel Brewer, Elizabeth DePeyster and Hannah Moore, Peale had 17 children (Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography). Due to his insatiable interest and curiosity Willson Peale founded a natural history museum...
This work shows impeccably drawn beech and basswood trees. It was painted for a New York collector by the name of Abraham M. Cozzens who was then a member of the executive committee of the American Art-Union. The painting shows a new trend in the work of the Hudson River School. It depicts a scene showing a tranquil mood. Durand was influenced by the work of the English landscape painter John Constable, whose vertical formats and truth to nature he absorbed while visiting England in 1840.
Benny Andrews was also inspired by the jazz clubs of Chicago and his work as a civilizing activist. He served as the Director of the Visual Art Program at the National Endowment for the Arts. Recognized for his collage works as well as carving, graphic, drawings, paintings, he is also a writer and critic and was a professor at Queens College in New York. Andrews is an outstanding designer, who is straightforward, but his powerful work is also unremarkable. He is also a writer and critic and was also a wonderful professor at Queens College in New York.
He used a luminist style of painting which means that he portrayed a landscape type of painting. He painted many sceneries that include houses, trees, grasslands, sunsets, ranches, and mountains. George Caleb Bingham is best known for his scenes that depict daily life out on the Western Frontier which means in Missouri.
Ed. Maynard Mack. 5th edition. New York: Norton 1987. 549-560.
The artist Thomas Cole was born in Bolton, Lancashire Northwestern England in 1801. At the age of seventeen he immigrated with his family to the United State in 1818. Young Mr. Cole was fundamentally a self-taught artist but when he and his family moved to Philadelphia, Ohio and Pittsburg he did attend the Philadelphia Academy. While attending the academy his first canvases works were included in the Academy’s exhibitions.
In 1857, Bierstadt joined an expedition to the West, where he made a name for himself after painting an image of The Rocky Mountains (Pohl 162). His painting included the images of the mountains, trees, clouds, and tents where Native Americans had once stayed (Pohl 163). His large panoramic views of his landscape painting, “The Rockies” led to public interest and a strong desire to travel far to see national territory and for Westward expansion (Pohl 163). His works of the Rocky Mountains toured the US and Europe and eventually was purchased by James McHenry who was invested in the railroads which furthered Westward expansion settlement, and the development of commercial interest (Pohl 163).
Examining the formal qualities of Homer Watson’s painting Horse and Rider In A Landscape was quite interesting. I chose to analyze this piece as apposed to the others because it was the piece I liked the least, therefore making me analyze it more closely and discover other aspects of the work, besides aesthetics.
Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. N.p., 2014. Print.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in the familiar, small town of Neosho, Missouri. He was named after his granduncle, the famed and prominent pre-American Civil War senator. First Thomas Hart Benton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then lived in beautiful Paris for three years. When he came back he moved to New York City after 1912 he turned away from his usual style, modernism, and gradually developed a rugged naturalism that affirmed traditional rural values. By the 1930’s Benton was riding a tide of popular acclaim along with his fellow regionalist Grant Wood, who was responsible for American Gothic, and John Steuart Curry, who was responsible for The Tragic Prelude. The mural, America Today (1930-1931, The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S., New York City), Thomas Hart Benton’s masterpiece, presented an optimistic portrayal of a vital country filled with earthy, muscular figures.
New York: Pearson; Longman Publishing, 2007. 1212-1280. Print. The. Gioia, Dana, and X.J. Kennedy.
8th ed. Vol. C. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 662-72. Print.
Ed. Lee A. Jacobus, Ph.D. 3rd ed. of the year. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996. 672-709. 2.
Frank Lloyd Wright has been called “one of the greatest American architect as well as an Art dealer that produced a numerous buildings, including houses, resorts, gardens, office buildings, churches, banks and museums. Wright was the first architect that pursues a philosophy of truly organic architecture that responds to the symphonies and harmonies in human habitats to their natural world. He was the apprentice of “father of Modernism” Louis Sullivan, and he was also one of the most influential architects on 20th century in America, Wright is idealist with the use of elemental theme and nature materials (stone, wood, and water), the use of sky and prairie, as well as the use of geometrical lines in his buildings planning. He also defined a building as ‘being appropriate to place’ if it is in harmony with its natural environment, with the landscape (Larkin and Brooks, 1993).
Greenblatt and M. H. Abrams. 8th ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1891