Artist: Thomas Cole Place/date of birth: Bolton-le-Moor, Lancashire, England 1801 Place/date of death: Catskill, New York 1848 Title: View Near the Village of Catskill Date of completion: 1827 Materials: Oil on wood panel Dimensions: 24 1/2 x 35 inches Signed and dated lower left: T.Cole/1827 Collection: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Accession number: 1995.22 Introduction This landscape shows a scene near the village of Catskill, a town on the Hudson River about 100 miles north of New York City. During the mid-nineteenth century Catskill was a popular destination for urban tourists who would travel to the country by steamboat or train. As American cities grew and became more congested, people became more interested in the uncrowded, rural scenery; landscapes became attractive forms of art to paint and sell to city dwellers. Discussion During the early part of the nineteenth century, there was a widespread feeling that the beauties, dangers, and sheer power of nature were reminders of God's presence. The love of nature was often equated with the love of God, and landscape paintings were transformed into expressions of religious intensity. Also, a feeling of national pride compared the seemingly endless space of the young American country to the overcrowded and tired lands of Europe. Although this picture conveys the feeling of a wilderness area, Catskill was actually a relatively settled place by the time this painting was created. Some areas not far from the location shown here had already been stripped of trees by local sawmills; there were farms nearby and a busy commercial district in the town. At the top right of the picture is the Mountain House, a famous inn and a popular destination for hikers. One thriving business in Catskill was a woodworking shop where tourists would stop to have a walking stick made before hiking in the mountains. Dutch settlers controlled this region for a relatively short amount of time, but Dutch names like "Catskill" attest to the persistence of Dutch place names in the New York region. Looking Closely In View Near the Village of Catskill, Cole has employed one of his favorite compositions. He has placed a large tree in the foreground next to a dead stump, a reference to past grandeur. The viewer's eye is drawn back to the far hills through the diagonal of lake and meadows. The tiny human figures at the far right and the grazing sheep are dwarfed by the vast countryside surrounding them. Style Cole sketched his landscape scenes out-of-doors, but returned to his New York studio to paint the actual picture, using components from various sketches. The seeming realism of his work is often misleading. Although Cole would painstakingly render the details of his compositions with great accuracy, it was not uncommon for him to rearrange the whole scene to fit his ideal vision. Artist Cole began his career engraving designs for fabrics at a textile mill in England. In the early nineteenth century his family moved to Ohio where Cole developed his skills as a painter while working at a number of art-related jobs such as wallpaper designer and wood engraver. Shortly after moving to New York, Cole began painting landscapes of the scenery along the Hudson River. People began to buy these works immediately, and Cole soon became the first person in the United States to earn a living as a landscape painter. He built a studio near Catskill in 1827 where he continued to paint well into the 1840s, but his primary residence remained in New York City. Views of Kaaterskill High Peak and Round Top Hill (the two most prominent mountains in this painting) were subjects he returned to repeatedly for reasons he outlines in his Essay on American Scenery: He who looks on nature with a loving eye, cannot move from his dwelling without the salutation of beauty; even in the city the deep blue sky and the drifting clouds appeal to him.... It is true that in the eastern part of this continent there are no mountains that vie in altitude with the snow-crowned Alps -- that the Alleghenies and the Catskills are in no point higher than five thousand feet; but this is no inconsiderable height....The Alleghenies are in general heavy in form; but the Catskills, although not broken into abrupt angles like the most picturesque mountains of Italy, have varied, undulating, and exceedingly beautiful outlines. They heave from the valley of the Hudson like the subsiding billows of the ocean after a storm. Further Reading The legendary location of Rip van Winkle's twenty-year slumber, made famous in Washington Irvin's story, is set not far from the village of Catskill. Links to American History Curriculum
SLIDE 9
VIEW NEAR THE VILLAGE OF CATSKILL
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