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Why Was Thomas Cole Called The Sublime

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“Thomas Cole captured the beauty of both the dangerous unpredictability of untouched wilderness, and the peaceful serenity of land subdued by man. In art, the former, the terrible beauty and power of nature, is called the sublime.” Born in 1801, Thomas Cole was an American Romantic Period movement leader and head of “The Hudson River School” which “captured history for America”. This artist was born in a time when advancements and new shifts were made in the field of art. Luckily, paint was made affordable because of preferences in chemistry and in 1840, the convenience of the rich and brilliant paint in collapsible tubes was invented. As the time goes by, fashions rise and fall, during Cole’s time, it was fashionable to paint outdoors or at least sketch the details outside and complete the details indoors. In one of Cole’s …show more content…

Considering the time period, and the symbolic tendencies of the artist, Cole is possibly making a “statement in favor of westward expansion” but also displaying the beauty of a wilderness uncultivated, untouched, and untamed. Cole had an interest in the flood and geological evidence for it; therefore, many people believe that the scars on the hill in the distance say either Noah or Shaddai. The Oxbow is a beautiful artwork that is worth comparing to another stunning piece titled The Rocky Mountain Lander’s Peak, painted in 1863 by Albert Bierstadt. Some things they have in common are as follows: they are both art work created in the 1800s, oil on canvas, a type of landscape featuring America, exhibits the glorious creation of both nature (each including water features, land, trees and a captivating sky) and human beings, displays the existence of an Intelligent Designer, and demonstrates brilliant and vibrant colors as well as smooth textures. Although the paintings are both incredible landscapes, there are some differences worth

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It was here, in New York, during this tour that Cole Painted three of his most famous paintings. These included; The Voyage of Life, Romantic Landscape with Ruined Tower, and The Subsiding of Waters of

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Thomas Cole was originally born in Lancashire, England in 1801. In 1818 he and his parents moved to America. Cole’s father wanted him to be a lawyer. However, Cole self-thought himself in the art where he found his true passion on painting. Cole always found picturesque landscapes for which showed interest at an early age.

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The Poetry of Nature I was lucky enough to see this display of landscape art from the Hudson River School. These paintings are from the golden era of America landscapes, a period stretching from 1818 to 1886. The Hudson River School is also considered to be the first American art movement. The art they created was nation wide. My favorite was titled Morning in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

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Viewing Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware painting evoked a great deal of emotion. Upon walking into the room filled with American landscape paintings, the enormous size demanded all my attention temporarily making me forget about the rest of the paintings. The longer I gazed at the artist’s magnificent triumph, the more I felt a part of this historic venture. The painting is oil-on-canvas, and it’s not the only painting Leutze made. The first version of this painting was damaged by a fire, and the second painting, which is a full-sized replica of the first, was begun shortly after the first version was damaged.

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window(Biography of Thomas Cole). Colonel John Trumbull, already widely known as the painter of the American Revolution, saw Cole’s pictures and instantly purchased one, recommending the other two to his friends William Dunlap and Asher B. Durand(Biography of Thomas Cole). What Trumbull recognized in the work of the young painter was the attention to detail and his unique perception of American scenery that landscape artists before had mostly ignored. Trumbull brought Cole to the attention of various buyers, who began eagerly buying his work. Dunlap publicized the discovery of the new talent and Cole was welcomed into New York’s cultural community, which included the poet and editor William Cullen Bryant and the author James Fenimore Cooper.

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In 1836, Thomas Cole created an astounding landscape painting titled The Oxbow, also known as View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts after a Thunderstorm. During the time of this piece's composition, Manifest Destiny, a movement that focused on the belief of justified and inevitable westward expansion, was occurring throughout America ("Manifest Destiny"). In The Oxbow, Cole describes this movement through the eastern and western lands depicted in the image. Cole uses oil on canvas to create the 130.8 x 193 cm landscape masterpiece that is now located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Zygmont). Due to the immense size of this painting, an onlooker can closely observe Cole's self-portrait in the lower portion of the painting, which

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The setting that Church used was soothing based off the painting because after looking at the painting multiple times, I truly feel that I can go inside it. The interesting thing about this setting is that there was an art school at the time called The Hudson River School. Church was only 21 years old when he painted this magnificent piece on the canvas. With a mentor like Thomas Cole, Church became an elaborate artist at a young age who made many more paintings. Most of Church’s works are landscape paintings, but it is the beauty of nature and emphasis in the painting that stands out against other

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is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree”. With this quote in mind, this painting conveys a tangible sense of the sublime as the figures peer off into an infinitely large, seeming ocean of tree-covered mountains. This, Cole argues, is what makes the American landscape so unique; the vastness of the country has yet to be conquered by man, creating a unique beauty and feeling of

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