1981.104 - A painting of a house in a field with mountains in the background

The British-born artist Thomas Cole is best known as one of the founding members of the Hudson River School, a group of artists that included Frederic Church, Asher Durand, Thomas Moran, and Albert Bierstadt. The movement got its name from Cole’s paintings of the Hudson River Valley, of which this work, The Catskills, is an example. While Cole worked in this area of the country for most of his life, later Hudson River School artists would travel to the western frontier to paint sites such as Yellowstone and the Rocky Mountains. The impetus for the growing interest in painting the American land came in part from the work of English Romantic poets such as Lord Byron and William Wordsworth, who idealized untamed nature as a source of spiritual fulfillment. Cole indicated in his writings that his paintings were meant to evoke the epic grandeur of God’s creation— at the same time they were also intended to serve as a warning against industrial development, which Cole felt was encroaching upon and destroying the natural landscape. In 1842, Cole became a member of the Episcopal Church and the spiritual undertones in his work became increasingly visible and direct. The “V” shape of the mountains in the center of this painting is a standard convention in Cole’s landscapes, suggesting that this “view” of the Catskills may have been constructed at least in part within the artist’s imagination. (Highlights from the Collection: from Rodin to Warhol - April 2 -July 11, 2010)