The Passage of Time: The Place of the Present in the Work of Thomas Cole

In a time when the landscape was considered an insignificant art form for any serious artist, Thomas Cole revolutionized a distinctly American style of painting that depicted in detail, the untamed landscapes of America. Previously, the present time and particular details of a place were considered unworthy subjects for great art. Nature was depicted in a generic way as a backdrop for timeless mythological scenes or historical events from the immutable past. Cole’s work not only emphasized the value and beauty in particular places, but it portrayed the past, not as fixed and unchanging, but as connected to the present moment. His landscapes portray traces of civilizations that came before and warn that human choices in the present moment will influence the land we live in for the future. Despite living in a new land, being primarily self taught, and starting a new movement in art, he did not disregard the past but saw his world as built upon past tradition. He did not finish his paintings in plein air, but gathered inspiration for his art through sketches he made of things he saw and admired in nature and the works of great artists. His landscapes often depicted the effects of the passage of time on the land as opposed to the way it looked in a given moment. 

Thomas Cole, Lake With Dead Trees,1825,Oil on Canvas, Allen Memorial Art Museum, 68.6x 85.7 cm, 1904.1183

This painting was done from sketches Cole made on a trip to Catskill, New York. It depicts not only the beauty, but the wildness of the landscape, bringing the Romantic concept of the sublime into American landscape painting. The clouds, which appear to be moving, and the dead trees juxtaposed with living ones, show the land in transition. It is shown to be yet untouched by human industry but susceptible to death and destruction, not fixed but changeable. The painting emphasized American identity found in it’s untamed wilderness and asked viewers what they would lose in the transition to an industrialized society. 

J.M.W. Turner, Ulysses deriding Polyphemus; Homer’s Odyssey, 1829. Oil on Canvas, 52 1/4x 80 1/2 in. NG508 

When Thomas Cole traveled to Europe to learn from established artists, Turner was one whose work he admired. Ulysses deriding Polyphemus depicts a scene from the Ancient Greek mythological poem, The Odyssey. Thomas Cole made multiple rough sketches of it, mapping out 
it’s composition of color, light, and shadows. It may have inspired him 
to incorporate classical subject matter into his landscapes, but in any event it shows his connection to previous artists and how he studied their work to incorporate into his own, even while developing a distinct style.

Thomas Cole,A View near Tivoli (Morning),1832, Oil on Canvas, 14 3/4 x 23 1/8in, 03.27

Painted during his trip to Europe, Cole’s View near Tivoli depicts a scene in Rome where a road runs under the ruins of an ancient aqueduct. The painting shows the influence of French Baroque artist, Claude Lorrain, on Cole’s technique. Like, the Lake with Dead Trees, the scene is not tied to a specific time, as it was based off of sketches done on site, but painted later in the studio. Passing time is depicted in the mist that seems to be rising from the mountains with the morning sun. The effects of time are also seen in the way people go about their daily lives amidst the ruins of a past civilization—ruins which have been partially reclaimed by nature and partially built into the roads of a later civilization. 

Thomas Cole, The Titan’s Goblet, 1833, 19 3/8 x 16 1/8in, Oil on Canvas, 04.29.2

The Titan’s Goblet was painted right after Cole returned from his trip to Europe. A mix of landscape, fantasy, and symbolism, it combines visual and thematic motifs gathered from his travels. There have been many different interpretations of the goblet and its meaning. Is the goblet the World tree from Nordic mythology, or the resting place of the the sun god, who was a titan in Greek mythology, or does the titan represent a great nation of people from the past on whose ruins a new civilization dwells? The setting sun and the movement of the 

waterfalls give the illusion that time it passing. Whether the goblet was left by gods or built by humans it serves as a representation of the past. The painting shows both past and present, nature and civilization, and depicts the way that nature reclaims the projects of humanity and how present society is built upon and in the shadows of past greatness. Despite the magnificent scale of the goblet compared to the ships and cities, It is located in the midst of an even vaster wilderness, evoking thought about our present society’s small place in the context of nature and the rest of history. 

Thomas Cole, The Course of the Empire: Desolation, 1836, Oil on Canvas, 160.7 x 100cm, New York Historical Society, 1858.5

Desolation is the last in a series of five paintings by Thomas Cole that portrayed the rise and fall of a great empire. Perhaps the best example of the themes of passage of time and human relationship with the land, the series traces a specific landscape from it’s wild primitive state to a wealthy empire to destruction. The lightning of the sun changes from sunrise to morning to midday to sunset from stage to stage. In this painting the sun has mostly set but still lights the 

scene from behind while the moon rises ahead. It represents the passage from day to night and the end of one civilization. No humans are present in the scene but it is clear that they had once been there and serves as a warning to America against ambition for Imperial greatness. It suggests that the natural land is their treasure and if they destroy it, they will eventually destroy themselves.

Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—the Oxbow, 1836, 5 1/2 x 76 in, 08.228 

Perhaps the most famous of Cole’s paintings, The Oxbow depicts a well known natural landmark, celebrating America’s unique landscape. This was not the scene exactly as he observed it (he even inserted himself into the painting) and he composed the painting in such a way that it juxtaposed the wild untamed landscape with the cultivated land where people lived. The passage of time is depicted in the storm passing over leaving much of the landscape in sun. The sky parallels the transition from wilderness to farmland and suggests the change the land has and will undergo due to human society. It does not pronounce a specific judgement on how to build upon the land but encourages Americans to cherish their land and think about what they want to do to 

it in the future. 

Thomas Cole, View in the Catskill—Early Autumn, 1836-37, 39x63 in, 95.13.3

This landscape near Cole’s house at Catskill creek depicts a tranquil landscape on the banks of a river where a woman and child pick flowers and enjoy the nature surrounding them. If you look closely you can see other signs of human life; a fence, a boy, a hunter, and a house with smoke rising from its chimney. They are mostly unobtrusive and tucked away within the landscape as if to show the ideal relationship between people and the land. Although there are no obvious signs of the passage of time in this painting, the sun sinking down behind two trees and the stump in the foreground for shadow the impending destruction of the landscape. By the time the painting was finished, a railroad was being constructed through the land at the expense of hundreds of trees. Viewers would have been aware of the change that time and progress had effected on this landscape that no longer existed, in a place that still did.