{"id":728,"date":"2015-10-15T19:42:29","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T19:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/zelixart102\/?post_type=chapter&p=728"},"modified":"2016-01-06T23:20:24","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T23:20:24","slug":"the-oxbow","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-arthistory2\/chapter\/the-oxbow\/","title":{"raw":"The Oxbow","rendered":"The Oxbow"},"content":{"raw":"Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Thomas Cole's The Oxbow<\/em>.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/RQ0855yB2ZM\r\n\r\nThomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, \u00a0after a Thunderstorm\u2014The Oxbow<\/i>,\u00a01836,\u00a0oil on canvas, 51 1\/2\" \u00d7 76\" (130.8 cm \u00d7 193 cm), (Metropolitan Museum of Art).\r\n

An American Painter Born in England<\/h2>\r\nDuring the nineteenth century\u2014an expanse of time that saw the elevation of landscape painting to a point of national pride\u2014Thomas Cole reigned supreme as the undisputed leader of the Hudson River School of landscape painters.\u00a0It is ironic, however, that the person who most embodies the beauty and grandeur of the American wilderness during the first half of the nineteenth century was not originally from the United States, but was instead born and lived the first seventeen years of his life in Great Britain.\u00a0Originally from Bolton-le-Moor in Lancashire (England), the Cole family immigrated to the United States in 1818, first settling in Philadelphia before eventually moving to Steubenville, Ohio, a locale then on the edge of wilderness of the American west.\r\n

Elevated Landscapes (Not History Paintings)<\/h2>\r\nCole worked briefly in Ohio as an itinerant portraitist, but returned to Philadelphia in 1823 at the age of 22 to pursue art instruction that was then unavailable in Ohio.\u00a0Two years later, Cole moved to New York City where he exchanged his aspirations of painting large-scale historical compositions for the more reasonable artistic goal of completing landscapes.\u00a0 For instruction, Cole turned to a book, William Oram\u2019s Precepts and Observations on the Art of Colouring in Landscaping<\/em> (1810), an instructional text that had a profound effect on Cole for the remainder of his artistic career.\r\n\r\nCole found quick success in New York City.\u00a0In the year of his arrival, 1825, John Trumbull, the patriarch of American portraiture and history painting, and the president of the American Academy of Design \u2018discovered\u2019 Cole, and the older artist made it an immediate goal to promote the talented landscape painter.\u00a0 In the months to follow, Trumbull introduced Cole to many of the wealthy and prominent men who would become his most influential patrons in the decades to follow.\u00a0One such man was Luman Reed, an affluent merchant who, in 1836, commissioned Cole to paint the five-canvas series The Course of Empire<\/em>.\r\n

Landscapes Imbued with a Moral Message<\/h2>\r\nIt is in this series\u2014and in many of the paintings to follow\u2014that Thomas Cole found the aesthetic voice to lift the genre of landscape painting to a level that approached history painting.\u00a0During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, great artists aspired to complete large-scale historical compositions, paintings that often had an instructive moral message.\u00a0Landscape paintings, in contrast, were often though more imitative than innovative.\u00a0But in The Course of Empire<\/em>, Cole was able to take the American landscape and imbue it with a moral message, as was often found in history paintings.\u00a0Indeed, the landscapes Cole began to paint in the 1830s were not entirely about the land. In these works, Cole used the land as a way to say something important about the United States.\r\n

The Oxbow: More than a Bend in the Connecticut River<\/h2>\r\nA wonderful illustration of this is Cole\u2019s 1836 masterwork, A View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm, <\/em>a painting that is generally (and mercifully) known as The Oxbow<\/em>. At first glance this painting may seem to be nothing more than an interesting view of a recognizable bend in the Connecticut River.\u00a0But when viewed through the lens of nineteenth-century political ideology, this painting eloquently speaks about the widely discussed topic of westward expansion.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_730\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1200\"]\"The<\/a> Figure 1. Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm\u2014The Oxbow<\/em>, oil on canvas, 1836 (Metropolitan Museum of Art).[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen looking at The Oxbow<\/em>, the viewer can clearly see that Cole used a diagonal line from the lower right to the upper left to divide the composition into two unequal halves.\u00a0The left-hand side of the painting depicts a sublime view of the land, a perspective that elicits feelings of danger and even fear.\u00a0This is enhanced by the gloomy storm clouds that seem to pummel the not-too-distant middle ground with rain.\u00a0This part of the painting depicts a virginal landscape, nature created by God and untouched by man.\u00a0It is wild, unruly, and untamed.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_733\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\"]\"detail Figure 2. The Oxbow<\/i> detail[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWithin the construction of American landscape painting, American artists often visually represented the notion of the untamed wilderness through the \"Blasted Tree\" (figure 2), a motif Cole paints into the lower left corner.\u00a0That such a formidable tree could be obliterated in such a way suggests the herculean power of Nature.\r\n\r\nIf the left side of this painting is sublime in tenor, on the right side of the composition we can observe a peaceful, pastoral landscape that humankind has subjugated to their will.\u00a0The land, which was once as disorderly as that on the left side of the painting, has now been overtaken by the order and regulation of agriculture.\u00a0Animals graze.\u00a0Crops grow.\u00a0Smoke billows from chimneys.\u00a0Boats sail upon the river.\u00a0What was once wild has been tamed.\u00a0The thunderstorm, which threatens the left side of the painting, has left the land on the right refreshed and no worse for the wear.\u00a0The sun shines brightly, filling the right side of the painting with the golden glow of a fresh afternoon.\r\n

Manifest Destiny<\/h2>\r\nWhen viewed together, the right side of the painting\u2014the view to the east\u2014and that of the left\u2014the west\u2014clearly speak to the ideology of Manifest Destiny.\u00a0During the nineteenth century, discussions of westward expansion dominated political discourse.\u00a0The Louisiana Purchase of 1804 essentially doubled the size of the United States, and many believed that it was a divinely ordained obligation of Americans to settle this westward territory.\u00a0In The Oxbow<\/em>, Cole visually shows the benefits of this process.\u00a0The land to the east is ordered, productive, and useful. In contrast, the land to the west remains unbridled. Further westward expansion\u2014a change that is destined to happen\u2014is shown to positively alter the land.\r\n

A Self-Portrait<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_737\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"350\"]\"detail Figure 3. The Oxbow<\/i> detail[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAlthough Cole was the most influential landscape artist of the first half of the nineteenth century, he was not completely adverse to figure painting.\u00a0Indeed, a close look at The Oxbow<\/em>, reveals an easily overlooked self-portrait in the lower part of the painting (figure 3).\u00a0Cole wears a coat and hat and stands before a stretched canvas placed on an easel, paintbrush in hand.\u00a0The artist pauses, as if in the middle of the brushstroke, to engage the viewer.\u00a0This work, then, in a kind of \u2018artist in his studio\u2019 self-portrait\u2014is akin, in many ways, to Charles Willson Peale\u2019s 1822 work The Artist in His Museum<\/em>.\u00a0In each, the artist depicts himself in his own setting.\u00a0For Peale, this was his natural history museum in Philadelphia.\u00a0For Cole, this was the nature he is most well known for painting.\r\n

Lasting Influence<\/h2>\r\nAlthough he only formally accepted one pupil for instruction\u2014this was, of course, Frederic Edwin Church\u2014Thomas Cole exerted a powerful influence on the course of landscape painting in the United States during the nineteenth century. Not content to merely paint the land, Cole elevated the landscape genre to approach the status of historical painting. The landscape painters who followed during the middle of the nineteenth century\u2014Church, Durant, Bierstadt, and others\u2014would often follow the trail that Cole had blazed.","rendered":"

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow<\/em>.<\/p>\n