essay on american scenery

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The greats outdoors: How Thomas Cole shaped the American landscape

Why Cole’s wounded pride helped inspire a national school of painting.

By Michael Prodger

The origins of what has come to be adopted as the US’s national landscape painting lie not in natural beauty but in wounded pride. In 1829 Captain Basil Hall, an English traveller and veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, published Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828 . The snooty observations it contained – on American life, manners, government and topography – caused a transatlantic furore. Hall’s disobliging comments about the young nation included the suggestions that Americans were spittoon-using parvenus obsessed with money, and that not only were they rough around the edges but their political and cultural institutions were inferior to those of Europe. To add insult to injury, someone who hosted Captain Hall and his wife during their trip recalled that Mrs Hall also “indulged herself in certain criticisms upon the American ladies”.

Those Americans were not a people subject to the cultural cringe or willing to be patronised by a scion of the Old World, and Hall’s book prompted numerous outraged responses in the press and even in books: the sense of hurt continued to sting for a decade. One of Hall’s criticisms, however, bore fruit. “Where the fine arts are not steadily cultivated,” he had observed, “there cannot possibly be much hearty  admiration of the beauties of nature.” This affront to American sensibility was seen as a challenge and one painter in particular took it up.

Ironically, the artist was English-born. Thomas Cole (1801-48) came from Lancashire and moved to the US with his family in 1818. As a naturalised citizen he was instrumental in founding the Hudson River School, a group of landscape painters who took the river valley and its scenes – boatmen and hunters, waterfalls and weather – as their theme, and who formed the nation’s first indigenous school of repute.

In 1836 Cole published his “ Essay on American Scenery”, which was, in part, a riposte to Hall. In it he lauded his adopted land, pointing out that its landscapes offered not just the sublime but also the picturesque and the beautiful – three themes that had been an important part of artistic discourse in Europe since the mid-18th century. What’s more, he said, American landscapes were all the better for not being burdened by associations with ancient civilisations. “You see no ruined tower to tell of outrage,” he wrote, “no gorgeous temple to speak of ostentation; but freedom’s offspring – peace, security and happiness dwell there, the spirits of the scene.” As he hit his stride his prose turned bright purple: “And in looking over the yet uncultivated scene, the mind’s eye may see far into futurity – mighty deeds shall be done in the now pathless wilderness; and poets yet unborn shall sanctify the soil.” One in the eye for the Old World.

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That same year Cole gave a painted rejoinder to Hall too, ponderously titled View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm , but better known as The Oxbow , and now in the Met in New York City. Mount Holyoke was a popular 19th-century tourist destination, some  145km west of Boston, overlooking the Connecticut river, that offered long-reaching views of the New England landscape (even Hall admired its vistas, despite the ginger-beer seller and fake hermit who could be found at the peak). Cole, however, treated it as both a literal and an allegorical place.

He came to the painting in the middle of working on his epic Course of Empire series, which showed the rise, peak and fall of a classical civilisation. His patron, the dry goods plutocrat Luman Reed, saw that work on the five paintings was wearing Cole down and suggested he try something else. Indeed, Cole had previously confessed in his diary that “my mind has been occupied with so many cares & anxieties, sickness of my Mother & Father etc, & so many interruptions that it has not been in proper tone for pursuing my profession”. He felt he was being sidelined by younger painters and that “my best days are passing away without being able to apply talents I possess so entirely to my art as I should wish”.

Cole had made sketches of the view in 1833 and for his painting he conflated a broader panorama and then, on a canvas nearly six feet wide, divided it diagonally in two. In one portion he showed wild nature – a storm tail passing overhead, leaving broken tree trunks and twisted foliage in its wake. In the other portion, beyond the glistening oxbow bend of the river, he showed an American Arcadia, all neatly tended fields, careful husbandry, peace and prosperity. Here is the futurity he spoke of and here, too, the idea of “manifest destiny” made real: Americans could and should tame the wilderness and shepherd it to civilisation.

Cole himself perhaps felt some ambiguity about the relentless recasting of the American landscape. The hill in the background bears logging scars that form the shapes of Hebrew words: one reads “Noah”, the other “Shaddai” – the Almighty. What is not altogether clear in this Eden is whether God is looking down approvingly on man’s work. There may be a boat and a barge on the river and farms on the plain, but there is only one human to be seen; it is a self- portrait of Cole at his easel, almost lost in the foreground undergrowth, as he fixes this moment of national transition in paint.

Cole has painted a series of contrasts: past and future, wild and temperate, innocence and experience, the sublime and the beautiful. There is a sense, too, that he knew how precariously balanced all these  elements were. In his Course of Empire paintings he showed what fate had in store for an overreaching civilisation.

The painting met with great acclaim when it was exhibited and he pocketed a very welcome $500 for his trouble. What it proved, however, was that American artists could depict their own land in ways unbeholden to the European tradition. Intriguingly, X-rays reveal that beneath the paint of The Oxbow lies the outline of a quite different picture, one containing ranks of classical buildings. In making a distinctively American art, Cole quite literally overpainted all traces of the Old World. Basil Hall, meanwhile, suffered mental illness in later life and was confined to an asylum in Plymouth, dying eight years after The Oxbow appeared. 

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This article appears in the 13 May 2020 issue of the New Statesman, Land of confusion

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Wilderness, settlement, American identity

Cole feared for the American landscape as his country expanded westward

Test your knowledge with a quiz

Cole, hunter's return.

• White Americans used the concept of Manifest Destiny to justify the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century. Increased white settlement and industry transformed the landscape of the American frontier.
• Cole sought to represent the sublime grandeur of the American landscape. The painting represents his conflicted feelings over the inevitable loss of wilderness that accompanied economic development.
• Cole was one of the first environmentalists. He shared the notion, popular in the early 19th century, that God’s divine presence was embodied in nature, and saw the American wilderness as central to the nation’s identity.
• Cole is credited as the founder of the Hudson River School , which is often described as the first style of painting to be considered American.

“The seemingly untouched quality of the nation’s wilderness distinguished the United States from Europe. The landscape came increasingly to embody what Americans most valued in themselves: an “unstoried” past, and “Adamic” freedom, an openness to the future, a fresh lease on life. In time, Americans came to think of themselves as “nature’s nation.” And yet one of the paradoxes of American history…lay in the unresolved tension between the subduing of the wilderness and the honoring of it. The tension is still alive with us today, in the competing voices of environmentalists and advocates of development.”

— Angela L. Miller, Janet Catherine Berlo, Bryan J. Wolf, and Jennifer L. Roberts,  American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity  (Washington University Libraries, 2018), p. 24 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

An unresolved tension

For much of the nineteenth century, America’s landscape was intimately connected with the nation’s identity (unlike Europe, nature in North America was seen as untouched by the hand of man). But the United States has also always prided itself on its entrepreneurial spirit, its economic progress, and its industry. This tension between the nation’s natural beauty and the inevitable expansion of industry was clearly felt in the mid-nineteenth century as logging, mining, railroads, and factories were quickly diminishing what once seemed an endless wilderness. Thomas Cole (1801-48) beautifully expressed the tension between these two American ideals in many of his landscape paintings.

Thomas Jefferson had envisioned that American democracy would be sustained by a nation of yeoman farmers who worked small farms with their families—such as the household pictured by Cole. By the end of 19th century, however, manufacturing had became a primary driver of the American economy.

The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 linked midwestern farms with cities on the east coast. Tanneries (where animal hides were processed to make leather using tannin, which was derived from hemlock trees) proliferated and lumber merchants deforested the landscape. As many as 70 million eastern hemlock trees were cut down to provide tannin. Beginning in the 1830s, the railroad had begun to cut across the American landscape, allowing for easier transportation of goods and passengers.

As the east coast grew increasingly populous and developed, more people moved westward in search of economic opportunity. The Homestead Acts were a series of laws enacted in 1862 to provide 160-acre lots of land at low cost, to encourage settlers to move west, answering Manifest Destiny’s [popup] call for westward expansion (the term was coined in 1845, the year this painting was made). Importantly, the popular conception of the west as unspoiled territory ignored the many nations of American Indians who had already settled the North American continent.

Cole’s painting

Though Cole’s The Hunter’s Return  features human figures, it was seen as a landscape painting, since nature is dominant. In the art academies of Europe landscapes were not accorded the same respect as history paintings (whose subjects came from history, the bible or mythology, and therefore had clear moral elements and treated noble subjects), but Cole was intent on elevating his landscapes by imbuing them with a more serious message.

At first glance, a viewer might assume that this painting is set in the Catskill Mountains in the Hudson River Valley in New York State where Cole lived and painted, but in fact this painting is a composite of many scenes, and promotes a specific point of view—one that is ambivalent about the ways that Americans were rapidly transforming the natural beauty that was so fundamental to the nation’s understanding of itself. The foreground of the painting juxtaposes the tree stumps left by man’s axe against the more pristine wilderness seen in the middle and background of the painting.

Cole’s image then is not real, but nostalgic. The artist gave voice to the longing for a pristine, pre-industrial America. Cole wrote,

“I cannot but express my sorrow that the beauty of such landscapes are quickly passing away. The ravages of the axe are daily increasing. The most noble scenes are made desolate, and oftentimes with a wantonness and barbarism scarcely credible in a civilized nation. This is a regret rather than a complaint. Such is the road society has to travel.” — Thomas Cole, “Essay on American Scenery,” The American Monthly Magazine , vol. 7, January 1836, p. 12 .

Learn more about this painting from the Amon Carter Museum

Who was Thomas Cole?

Read Thomas Cole’s “An Essay on American Scenery”

Learn about Cole and the other painters in the Hudson River School

Learn about the impact of tanneries on the landscape of the Catskill mountains

How did the Erie canal impact the development of the midwest?

More to think about

Compare Cole’s The Hunter’s Return with John Gast’s American Progress.  Discuss how these works suggest different perspectives on westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century.

Smarthistory images for teaching and learning:

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• Theme: National Identity
• Period: 1800 - 1848
• Topic: The frontier, Manifest Destiny, and the American West

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56 Thomas Cole

Joel Gladd, Ph.D

Essay on American Scenery (January, 1836)

The essay, which is here offered, is a mere sketch of an almost illimitable subject–American Scenery; and in selecting the theme the writer placed more confidence in its overflowing richness, than in his own capacity for treating it in a manner worthy of its vastness and importance.

It is a subject that to every American ought to be of surpassing interest; for, whether he beholds the Hudson mingling waters with the Atlantic–explores the central wilds of this vast continent, or stands on the margin of the distant Oregon, he is still in the midst of American scenery–it is his own land; its beauty, its magnificence, its sublimity–all are his; and how undeserving of such a birthright, if he can turn towards it an unobserving eye, an unaffected heart!

Before entering into the proposed subject, in which I shall treat more particularly of the scenery of the Northern and Eastern States, I shall be excused for saying a few words on the advantages of cultivating a taste for scenery, and for exclaiming against the apathy with which the beauties of external nature are regarded by the great mass, even of our refined community.

It is generally admitted that the liberal arts tend to soften our manners; but they do more–they carry with them the power to mend our hearts.

Poetry and Painting sublime and purify thought, by grasping the past, the present, and the future– they give the mind a foretaste of its immortality, and thus prepare it for performing an exalted part amid the realities of life. And rural nature is full of the same quickening spirit–it is, in fact, the exhaustless mine from which the poet and the painter have brought such wondrous treasures– an unfailing fountain of intellectual enjoyment, where all may drink, and be awakened to a deeper feeling of the works of genius, and a keener perception of the beauty of our existence. For those whose days are all consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolities of fashion, unobservant of nature’s loveliness, are unconscious of the harmony of creation–

“Heaven’s roof to them

Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps;

No more — that lights them to their purposes —

They wander ‘loose about;’ they nothing see,

Themselves except, and creatures like themselves,

Short lived, short sighted.”

What to them is the page of the poet where he describes or personifies the skies, the mountains, or the streams, if those objects themselves have never awakened observation or excited pleasure? What to them is the wild Salvator Rosa, or the aerial Claude Lorrain?

There is in the human mind an almost inseparable connection between the beautiful and the good, so that if we contemplate the one the other seems present; and an excellent author has said, “it is difficult to look at any objects with pleasure–unless where it arises from brutal and tumultuous emotions–without feeling that disposition of mind which tends towards kindness and benevolence; and surely, whatever creates such a disposition, by increasing our pleasures and enjoyments, cannot be too much cultivated.”

It would seem unnecessary to those who can see and feel, for me to expatiate on the loveliness of verdant fields, the sublimity of lofty mountains, or the varied magnificence of the sky; but that the number of those who seek enjoyment in such sources is comparatively small. From the indifference with which the multitude regard the beauties of nature, it might be inferred that she had been unnecessarily lavish in adorning this world for beings who take no pleasure in its adornment. Who in grovelling pursuits forget their glorious heritage. Why was the earth made so beautiful, or the sun so clad in glory at his rising and setting, when all might be unrobed of beauty without affecting the insensate multitude, so they can be “lighted to their purposes?”

It has not been in vain–the good, the enlightened of all ages and nations, have found pleasure and consolation in the beauty of the rural earth. Prophets of old retired into the solitudes of nature to wait the inspiration of heaven. It was on Mount Horeb that Elijah witnessed the mighty wind, the earthquake, and the fire; and heard the “still small voice”–that voice is YET heard among the mountains! St. John preached in the desert;–the wilderness is YET a fitting place to speak of God. The solitary Anchorites of Syria and Egypt, though ignorant that the busy world is man’s noblest sphere of usefulness, well knew how congenial to religious musings are the pathless solitudes.

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. And if to escape its turmoil–if only to obtain a free horizon, land and water in the play of light and shadow yields delight–let him be transported to those favored regions, where the features of the earth are more varied, or yet add the sunset, that wreath of glory daily bound around the world, and he, indeed, drinks from pleasure’s purest cup. The delight such a man experiences is not merely sensual, or selfish, that passes with the occasion leaving no trace behind; but in gazing on the pure creations of the Almighty, he feels a calm religious tone steal through his mind, and when he has turned to mingle with his fellow men, the chords which have been struck in that sweet communion cease not to vibrate.

In what has been said I have alluded to wild and uncultivated scenery; but the cultivated must not be forgotten, for it is still more important to man in his social capacity–necessarily bringing him in contact with the cultured; it encompasses our homes, and, though devoid of the stern sublimity of the wild, its quieter spirit steals tenderly into our bosoms mingled with a thousand domestic affections and heart-touching associations–human hands have wrought, and human deeds hallowed all around.

And it is here that taste, which is the perception of the beautiful, and the knowledge of the principles on which nature works, can be applied, and our dwelling-places made fitting for refined and intellectual beings.

If, then, it is indeed true that the contemplation of scenery can be so abundant a source of delight and improvement, a taste for it is certainly worthy of particular cultivation; for the capacity for enjoyment increases with the knowledge of the true means of obtaining it. In this age, when a meager utilitarianism seems ready to absorb every feeling and sentiment, and what is sometimes called improvement in its march makes us fear that the bright and tender flowers of the imagination shall all be crushed beneath its iron tramp, it would be well to cultivate the oasis that yet remains to us, and thus preserve the germs of a future and a purer system. And now, when the sway of fashion is extending widely over society–poisoning the healthful streams of true refinement, and turning men from the love of simplicity and beauty, to a senseless idolatry of their own follies–to lead them gently into the pleasant paths of Taste would be an object worthy of the highest efforts of genius and benevolence. The spirit of our society is to contrive but not to enjoy–toiling to produce more toil-accumulating in order to aggrandize. The pleasures of the imagination, among which the love of scenery holds a conspicuous place, will alone temper the harshness of such a state; and, like the atmosphere that softens the most rugged forms of the landscape, cast a veil of tender beauty over the asperities of life. Did our limits permit I would endeavor more fully to show how necessary to the complete appreciation of the Fine Arts is the study of scenery, and how conducive to our happiness and well-being is that study and those arts; but I must now proceed to the proposed subject of this essay–American Scenery!

There are those who through ignorance or prejudice strive to maintain that American scenery possesses little that is interesting or truly beautiful–that it is rude without picturesqueness, and monotonous without sublimity–that being destitute of those vestiges of antiquity, whose associations so strongly affect the mind, it may not be compared with European scenery. But from whom do these opinions come? From those who have read of European scenery, of Grecian mountains, and Italian skies, and never troubled themselves to look at their own; and from those travelled ones whose eyes were never opened to the beauties of nature until they beheld foreign lands, and when those lands faded from the sight were again closed and forever; disdaining to destroy their trans-atlantic impressions by the observation of the less fashionable and unfamed American scenery. Let such persons shut themselves up in their narrow shell of prejudice–I hope they are few,–and the community increasing in intelligence, will know better how to appreciate the treasures of their own country. I am by no means desirous of lessening in your estimation the glorious scenes of the old world– that ground which has been the great theater of human events–those mountains, woods, and streams, made sacred in our minds by heroic deeds and immortal song–over which time and genius have suspended an imperishable halo. No! But I would have it remembered that nature has shed over this land beauty and magnificence, and although the character of its scenery may differ from the old world’s, yet inferiority must not therefore be inferred; for though American scenery is destitute of many of those circumstances that give value to the European, still it has features, and glorious ones, unknown to Europe.

A very few generations have passed away since this vast tract of the American continent, now the United States, rested in the shadow of primeval forests, whose gloom was peopled by savage beasts, and scarcely less savage men; or lay in those wide grassy plains called prairies–

“The Gardens of the Desert, these

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful.”

And, although an enlightened and increasing people have broken in upon the solitude, and with activity and power wrought changes that seem magical, yet the most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wildness.

It is the most distinctive, because in civilized Europe the primitive features of scenery have long since been destroyed or modified–the extensive forests that once overshadowed a great part of it have been felled–rugged mountains have been smoothed, and impetuous rivers turned from their courses to accommodate the tastes and necessities of a dense population–the once tangled wood is now a grassy lawn; the turbulent brook a navigable stream–crags that could not be removed have been crowned with towers, and the rudest valleys tamed by the plough.

And to this cultivated state our western world is fast approaching; but nature is still predominant, and there are those who regret that with the improvements of cultivation the sublimity of the wilderness should pass away: for those scenes of solitude from which the hand of nature has never been lifted, affect the mind with a more deep toned emotion than aught which the hand of man has touched. Amid them the consequent associations are of God the creator–they are his undefiled works, and the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things.

As mountains are the most conspicuous objects in landscape, they will take the precedence in what I may say on the elements of American scenery.

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 Alleghanies and the Catskills are in no point higher than five thousand feet; but this is no inconsiderable height; Snowdon in Wales, and Ben-Nevis in Scotland, are not more lofty; and in New Hampshire, which has been called the Switzerland of the United States, the White Mountains almost pierce the region of perpetual snow. The Alleghanies 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.

But in the mountains of New Hampshire there is a union of the picturesque, the sublime, and the magnificent; there the bare peaks of granite, broken and desolate, cradle the clouds; while the vallies and broad bases of the mountains rest under the shadow of noble and varied forests; and the traveller who passes the Sandwich range on his way to the White Mountains, of which it is a spur, cannot but acknowledge, that although in some regions of the globe nature has wrought on a more stupendous scale, yet she has nowhere so completely married together grandeur and loveliness–there he sees the sublime melting into the beautiful, the savage tempered by the magnificent.

I will now speak of another component of scenery, without which every landscape is defective–it is water. Like the eye in the human countenance, it is a most expressive feature: in the unrippled lake, which mirrors all surrounding objects, we have the expression of tranquillity and peace–in the rapid stream, the headlong cataract, that of turbulence and impetuosity.

And now I must turn to another of the beautifiers of the earth–the Waterfall; which in the same object at once presents to the mind the beautiful, but apparently incongruous idea, of fixedness and motion–a single existence in which we perceive unceasing change and everlasting duration. The waterfall may be called the voice of the landscape, for, unlike the rocks and woods which utter sounds as the passive instruments played on by the elements, the waterfall strikes its own chords, and rocks and mountains re-echo in rich unison. And this is a land abounding in cataracts; in these Northern States where shall we turn and not find them? Have we not Kaaterskill, Trenton, the Flume, the Genesee, stupendous Niagara, and a hundred others named and nameless ones, whose exceeding beauty must be acknowledged when the hand of taste shall point them out?

In the Kaaterskill we have a stream, diminutive indeed, but throwing itself headlong over a fearful precipice into a deep gorge of the densely wooded mountains–and possessing a singular feature in the vast arched cave that extends beneath and behind the cataract. At Trenton there is a chain of waterfalls of remarkable beauty, where the foaming waters, shadowed by steep cliffs, break over rocks of architectural formation, and tangled and picturesque trees mantle abrupt precipices, which it would be easy to imagine crumbling and “time disparting towers.”

And Niagara! that wonder of the world!–where the sublime and beautiful are bound together in an indissoluble chain. In gazing on it we feel as though a great void had been filled in our minds– our conceptions expand–we become a part of what we behold! At our feet the floods of a thousand rivers are poured out–the contents of vast inland seas. In its volume we conceive immensity; in its course, everlasting duration; in its impetuosity, uncontrollable power. These are the elements of its sublimity. Its beauty is garlanded around in the varied hues of the water, in the spray that ascends the sky, and in that unrivalled bow which forms a complete cincture round the unresting floods.

I will now venture a few remarks on what has been considered a grand defect in American scenery–the want of associations, such as arise amid the scenes of the old world.

We have many a spot as umbrageous as Vallombrosa, and as picturesque as the solitudes of Vaucluse; but Milton and Petrarch have not hallowed them by their footsteps and immortal verse. He who stands on Mont Albano and looks down on ancient Rome, has his mind peopled with the gigantic associations of the storied past; but he who stands on the mounds of the West, the most venerable remains of American antiquity, may experience the emotion of the sublime, but it is the sublimity of a shoreless ocean un-islanded by the recorded deeds of man.

Yet American scenes are not destitute of historical and legendary associations–the great struggle for freedom has sanctified many a spot, and many a mountain, stream, and rock has its legend, worthy of poet’s pen or the painter’s pencil. But American associations are not so much of the past as of the present and the future. Seated on a pleasant knoll, look down into the bosom of that secluded valley, begin with wooded hills–through those enamelled meadows and wide waving fields of grain, a silver stream winds lingeringly along–here, seeking the green shade of trees– there, glancing in the sunshine: on its banks are rural dwellings shaded by elms and garlanded by flowers–from yonder dark mass of foliage the village spire beams like a star. You see no ruined tower to tell of outrage–no gorgeous temple to speak of ostentation; but freedom’s offspring– peace, security, and happiness, dwell there, the spirits of the scene. On the margin of that gentle river the village girls may ramble unmolested–and the glad school-boy, with hook and line, pass his bright holiday–those neat dwellings, unpretending to magnificence, are the abodes of plenty, virtue, and refinement. And in looking over the yet uncultivated scene, the mind’s eye may see far into futurity. Where the wolf roams, the plough shall glisten; on the gray crag shall rise temple and tower–mighty deeds shall be done in the now pathless wilderness; and poets yet unborn shall sanctify the soil.

It was my intention to attempt a description of several districts remarkable for their picturesqueness and truly American character; but I fear to trespass longer on your time and patience. Yet I cannot but express my sorrow that the beauty of such landscapes are quickly passing away–the ravages of the axe are daily increasing–the most noble scenes are made desolate, and oftentimes with a wantonness and barbarism scarcely credible in a civilized nation. The wayside is becoming shadeless, and another generation will behold spots, now rife with beauty, desecrated by what is called improvement; which, as yet, generally destroys Nature’s beauty without substituting that of Art. This is a regret rather than a complaint; such is the road society has to travel; it may lead to refinement in the end, but the traveller who sees the place of rest close at hand, dislikes the road that has so many unnecessary windings.

I will now conclude, in the hope that, though feebly urged, the importance of cultivating a taste for scenery will not be forgotten. Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet. Shall we turn from it? We are still in Eden; the wall that shuts us out of the garden is our own ignorance and folly. We should not allow the poet’s words to be applicable to us–

“Deep in rich pasture do thy flocks complain?

Not so; but to their master is denied

To share the sweet serene.

May we at times turn from the ordinary pursuits of life to the pure enjoyment of rural nature; which is in the soul like a fountain of cool waters to the way-worn traveller; and let us

The laws by which the Eternal doth sublime

And sanctify his works, that we may see

The hidden glory veiled from vulgar eyes.”

The Course of Empire: Paintings, 1834-1836

Savage state (1834).

Description from Thomas Cole:

No. 1., which may be called the ‘Savage State,’ or ‘the Commencement of Empire,’ represents a wild scene of rocks, mountains, woods, and a bay of the ocean. The sun is rising from the sea, and the stormy clouds of night are dissipating before his rays. On the farthest side of the buy rises a precipitous hill, crowned by a singular isolated rock, which, to the mariner, would ever be a striking land-mark. As the same locality is represented in each picture of the series, this rock identifies it, although the observer’s situation varies in the several pictures. The chase being the most characteristic occupation of savage life, in the fore-ground we see a man attired in skins, in pursuit of a deer, which, stricken by his arrow, is bounding down a water-course. On the rocks in the middle ground are to be seen savages, with dogs, in pursuit of deer. On the water below may be seen several canoes, and on the promontory beyond, are several huts, and a number of figures dancing round a fire. In this picture, we have the first rudiments of society. Men are banded together for mutual aid in the chase, etc. The useful arts have commenced in the construction of canoes, huts, and weapons. Two of the fine arts, music and poetry, have their germs, as we may suppose, in the singing which usually accompanies the dance of savages. The empire is asserted, although to a limited degree, over sea, land, and the animal kingdom. The season represented is Spring. [1]

The Arcadian or Pastoral State (1834)

The Consummation (1836)

In the picture No. 3, we suppose other ages have passed, and the rude village has become a magnificent city. The part seen occupies both sides of the bay, which the observer has now crossed. It has been converted into a capacious harbor, at whose entrance, toward the sea, stand two phari. From the water on each hand, piles of architecture ascend — touples, collonades and domes. It is a day of rejoicing. A triumphal procession moves over the bridge near the fore-ground. The conqueror, robed in purple, is mounted in a car drawn by an elephant, and surrounded by captives on foot, and a numerous train of guards, senators, etc. — pictures and golden treasures are carried before him. He is about to pass beneath the triumphal arch, while girls strew flowers around. Gay festoons of drapery hang from the clustered columns. Golden trophies glitter above in the sun, and incense rises from silver censors. The harbor is alive with numerous vessels – war galleys, and barks with silken sails. Before the doric temple on the left, the smoke of incense and of the altar rise, and a multitude of white-robed priests stand around on the marble steps. The statue of Minerva, with a victory in her hand, stands above the building of the Caryatides, on a columned pedestal, near which is a band with trumpets, cymbals, etc. On the right, near a bronze fountain and in the shadow of lofty buildings, is an imperial personage viewing the procession, surrounded by her children, attendants, and guard. In this scene is depicted the summit of human glory. The architecture, the ornamental embellishments, etc., show that wealth, power, knowledge, and taste have worked together, and accomplished the highest meed of human achievement and empire. As the triumphal fete would indicate, man has conquered man — nations have been subjugated. This scene is represented as near mid-day, in the early Autumn. [3]

Destruction (1836)

No. 4.— The picture represents the Vicious State, or State of Destruction. Ages may have passed since the scene of glory — though the decline of nations is generally more rapid than their rise. Luxury has weakened and debased. A savage enemy has entered the city. A fierce tempest is raging. Walls and colonnades have been thrown down. Temples and palaces are burning. An arch of the bridge, over which the triumphal procession was passing in the former scene, has been battered down, and the broken pillars, and ruins of war engines, and the temporary bridge that has been thrown over, indicate that this has been the scene of fierce contention. Now there is a mingled multitude battling on the narrow bridge, whose insecurity makes the conflict doubly fearful. Horses and men are precipitated into the foaming waters beneath; war galleys are contending: one vessel is in flames, and another is sinking beneath the prow of a superior foe. In the more distant part of the harbor, the contending vessels are dashed by the furious waves, and some are burning. Along the battlements, among the ruined Caryatides, the contention is fierce; and the combatants fight amid the smoke and flame of prostrate edifices. In the fore-ground are several dead and dying; some bodies have fallen in the basin of a fountain, tinging the waters with their blood. A female is seen sitting in mute despair over the dead body of her son, and a young woman is escaping from the ruffian grasp of a soldier, by leaping over the battlement; another soldier drags a woman by the hair down the steps that form part of the pedestal of a mutilated colossal statue, whose shattered head lies on the pavement below. A barbarous and destroying enemy conquers and sacks the city. Description of this picture is perhaps needless; carnage and destruction are its elements. [4]

Desolation (1836)

The fifth picture is the scene of Desolation. The sun has just set, the moon ascends the twilight sky over the ocean, near the place where the sun rose in the first picture. Day-light fades away, and the shades of evening steal over the shattered and ivy-grown ruins of that once proud city. A lonely column stands near the fore ground, on whose capitol, which is illumined by the last rays of the departed sun, a heron has built her nest. The doric temple and the triumphal bridge, may still be recognised among the ruins. But, though man and his works have perished, the steep promontory, with its insulated rock, still rears against the sky unmoved, unchanged. Violence and time have crumbled the works of man, and art is again resolving into elemental nature. The gorgeous pageant has passed — the roar of battle has ceased — the multitude has sunk in the dust — the empire is extinct. [5]

View on the Catskill–Early Autumn (1836-37)

River in the Catskills (1843)

The Cross and the World–The Pilgrim of the World on his Journey (1846-1847)

• From " The Fine Arts ." Knickerbocker, or, New York Monthly Mag. 8:629-630. 1836. ↵

Anthology of Earlier American Literature: College of Western Idaho Copyright © by Joel Gladd, Ph.D is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Essay on American Scenery Thomas Cole

The American Monthly Magazine 1 (January 1836) [I. Introduction]

The essay, which is here offered, is a mere sketch of an almost illimitable subject-- American Scenery; and in selecting the theme the writer placed more confidence in its overflowing richness, than in his own capacity for treating it in a manner worthy of its vastness and importance.

It is a subject that to every American ought to be of surpassing interest; for, whether he beholds the Hudson mingling waters with the Atlantic--explores the central wilds of this vast continent, or stands on the margin of the distant Oregon, he is still in the midst of American scenery--it is his own land; its beauty, its magnificence, its sublimity--all are his; and how undeserving of such a birthright, if he can turn towards it an unobserving eye, an unaffected heart!

Before entering into the proposed subject, in which I shall treat more particularly of the scenery of the Northern and Eastern States, I shall be excused for saying a few words on the advantages of cultivating a taste for scenery, and for exclaiming against the apathy with which the beauties of external nature are regarded by the great mass, even of our refined community.

[1. The Contemplation of Scenery as a Source of Delight and Improvement]

It is generally admitted that the liberal arts tend to soften our manners; but they do more-- they carry with them the power to mend our hearts.

Poetry and Painting sublime and purify thought, by grasping the past, the present, and the future--they give the mind a foretaste of its immortality, and thus prepare it for

performing an exalted part amid the realities of life. And rural nature is full of the same quickening spirit--it is, in fact, the exhaustless mine from which the poet and the painter have brought such wondrous treasures--an unfailing fountain of intellectual enjoyment, where all may drink, and be awakened to a deeper feeling of the works of genius, and a keener perception of the beauty of our existence. For those whose days are all consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolities of fashion, unobservant of nature's loveliness, are unconscious of the harmony of creation--

Heaven's roof to them

Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps; No more--that lights them to their purposes-- They wander 'loose about;' they nothing see, Themselves except, and creatures like themselves,

What to them is the page of the poet where he describes or personifies the skies, the mountains, or the streams, if those objects themselves have never awakened observation or excited pleasure? What to them is the wild Salvator Rosa, or the aerial Claude Lorrain? There is in the human mind an almost inseparable connection between the beautiful and the good, so that if we contemplate the one the other seems present; and an excellent author has said, "it is difficult to look at any objects with pleasure--unless where it arises from brutal and tumultuous emotions--without feeling that disposition of mind which tends towards kindness and benevolence; and surely, whatever creates such a disposition, by increasing our pleasures and enjoyments, cannot be too much cultivated."

It would seem unnecessary to those who can see and feel, for me to expatiate on the loveliness of verdant fields, the sublimity of lofty mountains, or the varied magnificence of the sky; but that the number of those who seek enjoyment in such sources is

comparatively small. From the indifference with which the multitude regard the beauties of nature, it might be inferred that she had been unnecessarily lavish in adorning this world for beings who take no pleasure in its adornment. Who in grovelling pursuits forget their glorious heritage. Why was the earth made so beautiful, or the sun so clad in glory at his rising and setting, when all might be unrobed of beauty without affecting the insensate multitude, so they can be "lighted to their purposes?"

It has not been in vain--the good, the enlightened of all ages and nations, have found pleasure and consolation in the beauty of the rural earth. Prophets of old retired into the solitudes of nature to wait the inspiration of heaven. It was on Mount Horeb that Elijah witnessed the mighty wind, the earthquake, and the fire; and heard the "still small voice"- -that voice is YET heard among the mountains! St. John preached in the desert;--the wilderness is YET a fitting place to speak of God. The solitary Anchorites of Syria and Egypt, though ignorant that the busy world is man's noblest sphere of usefulness, well knew how congenial to religious musings are the pathless solitudes.

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. And if to escape its turmoil--if only to obtain a free horizon, land and water in the play of light and shadow yields delight--let him be transported to those favored regions, where the features of the earth are more varied, or yet add the sunset, that wreath of glory daily bound around the world, and he, indeed, drinks from pleasure's purest cup. The delight such a man experiences is not merely sensual, or selfish, that passes with the occasion leaving no trace behind; but in gazing on the pure creations of the Almighty, he feels a calm religious tone steal through his mind, and when he has turned to mingle with his fellow men, the chords which have been struck in that sweet communion cease not to vibrate.

In what has been said I have alluded to wild and uncultivated scenery; but the cultivated must not be forgotten, for it is still more important to man in his social capacity--

bosoms mingled with a thousand domestic affections and heart-touching associations-- human hands have wrought, and human deeds hallowed all around.

And it is here that taste, which is the perception of the beautiful, and the knowledge of the principles on which nature works, can be applied, and our dwelling-places made fitting for refined and intellectual beings.

[2. The Advantages of Cultivating a Taste for Scenery]

If, then, it is indeed true that the contemplation of scenery can be so abundant a source of delight and improvement, a taste for it is certainly worthy of particular cultivation; for the capacity for enjoyment increases with the knowledge of the true means of obtaining it. In this age, when a meager utilitarianism seems ready to absorb every feeling and

sentiment, and what is sometimes called improvement in its march makes us fear that the bright and tender flowers of the imagination shall all be crushed beneath its iron tramp, it would be well to cultivate the oasis that yet remains to us, and thus preserve the germs of a future and a purer system. And now, when the sway of fashion is extending widely over society--poisoning the healthful streams of true refinement, and turning men from the love of simplicity and beauty, to a senseless idolatry of their own follies--to lead them gently into the pleasant paths of Taste would be an object worthy of the highest efforts of genius and benevolence. The spirit of our society is to contrive but not to enjoy--toiling to produce more toil-accumulating in order to aggrandize. The pleasures of the imagination, among which the love of scenery holds a conspicuous place, will alone temper the

harshness of such a state; and, like the atmosphere that softens the most rugged forms of the landscape, cast a veil of tender beauty over the asperities of life.

Did our limits permit I would endeavor more fully to show how necessary to the

complete appreciation of the Fine Arts is the study of scenery, and how conducive to our happiness and well-being is that study and those arts; but I must now proceed to the proposed subject of this essay--American Scenery!

[II. The Elements of American Scenery]

There are those who through ignorance or prejudice strive to maintain that American scenery possesses little that is interesting or truly beautiful--that it is rude without

picturesqueness, and monotonous without sublimity--that being destitute of those vestiges of antiquity, whose associations so strongly affect the mind, it may not be compared with European scenery. But from whom do these opinions come? From those who have read of European scenery, of Grecian mountains, and Italian skies, and never troubled themselves to look at their own; and from those travelled ones whose eyes were never opened to the beauties of nature until they beheld foreign lands, and when those lands faded from the sight were again closed and forever; disdaining to destroy their trans- atlantic impressions by the observation of the less fashionable and unfamed American scenery. Let such persons shut themselves up in their narrow shell of prejudice--I hope

they are few,--and the community increasing in intelligence, will know better how to appreciate the treasures of their own country.

I am by no means desirous of lessening in your estimation the glorious scenes of the old world--that ground which has been the great theater of human events--those mountains, woods, and streams, made sacred in our minds by heroic deeds and immortal song--over which time and genius have suspended an imperishable halo. No! But I would have it remembered that nature has shed over this land beauty and magnificence, and although the character of its scenery may differ from the old world's, yet inferiority must not therefore be inferred; for though American scenery is destitute of many of those circumstances that give value to the European, still it has features, and glorious ones, unknown to Europe.

[1. Wildness]

A very few generations have passed away since this vast tract of the American continent, now the United States, rested in the shadow of primeval forests, whose gloom was peopled by savage beasts, and scarcely less savage men; or lay in those wide grassy plains called prairies--

The Gardens of the Desert, these

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful.

And, although an enlightened and increasing people have broken in upon the solitude, and with activity and power wrought changes that seem magical, yet the most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wildness. It is the most distinctive, because in civilized Europe the primitive features of scenery have long since been destroyed or modified--the extensive forests that once

overshadowed a great part of it have been felled--rugged mountains have been smoothed, and impetuous rivers turned from their courses to accommodate the tastes and necessities of a dense population--the once tangled wood is now a grassy lawn; the turbulent brook a navigable stream--crags that could not be removed have been crowned with towers, and the rudest valleys tamed by the plough.

And to this cultivated state our western world is fast approaching; but nature is still predominant, and there are those who regret that with the improvements of cultivation the sublimity of the wilderness should pass away: for those scenes of solitude from which the hand of nature has never been lifted, affect the mind with a more deep toned emotion than aught which the hand of man has touched. Amid them the consequent associations are of God the creator--they are his undefiled works, and the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things.

[2. Mountains]

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 Alleghanies and the Catskills are in no point higher than five thousand feet; but this is no inconsiderable height; Snowdon in Wales, and Ben-Nevis in Scotland, are not more lofty; and in New Hampshire, which has been called the Switzerland of the United States, the White Mountains almost pierce the region of perpetual snow. The Alleghanies 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.

American mountains are generally clothed to the summit by dense forests, while those of Europe are mostly bare, or merely tinted by grass or heath. It may be that the mountains of Europe are on this account more picturesque in form, and there is a grandeur in their nakedness; but in the gorgeous garb of the American mountains there is more than an equivalent; and when the woods "have put their glory on," as an American poet has beautifully said, the purple heath and yellow furze of Europe's mountains are in comparison but as the faint secondary rainbow to the primal one.

But in the mountains of New Hampshire there is a union of the picturesque, the sublime, and the magnificent; there the bare peaks of granite, broken and desolate, cradle the clouds; while the vallies and broad bases of the mountains rest under the shadow of noble and varied forests; and the traveller who passes the Sandwich range on his way to the White Mountains, of which it is a spur, cannot but acknowledge, that although in some regions of the globe nature has wrought on a more stupendous scale, yet she has nowhere so completely married together grandeur and loveliness--there he sees the sublime

melting into the beautiful, the savage tempered by the magnificent. [3. Water]

I will now speak of another component of scenery, without which every landscape is defective--it is water. Like the eye in the human countenance, it is a most expressive feature: in the unrippled lake, which mirrors all surrounding objects, we have the expression of tranquillity and peace--in the rapid stream, the headlong cataract, that of turbulence and impetuosity.

In this great element of scenery, what land is so rich? I would not speak of the Great Lakes, which are in fact inland seas--possessing some of the attributes of the ocean, though destitute of its sublimity; but of those smaller lakes, such as Lake George,

Champlain, Winnipisiogee, Otsego, Seneca, and a hundred others, that stud like gems the bosom of this country. There is one delightful quality in nearly all these lakes--the purity and transparency of the water. In speaking of scenery it might seem unnecessary to mention this; but independent of the pleasure that we all have in beholding pure water, it is a circumstance which contributes greatly to the beauty of landscape; for the reflections

of surrounding objects, trees, mountains, sky, are most perfect in the clearest water; and the most perfect is the most beautiful.

I would rather persuade you to visit the "Holy Lake," the beautiful "Horican," than attempt to describe its scenery--to behold you rambling on its storied shores, where its southern expanse is spread, begernmed with isles of emerald, and curtained by green receding hills--or to see you gliding over its bosom, where the steep and rugged

mountains approach from either side, shadowing with black precipices the innumerable islets--some of which bearing a solitary tree, others a group of two or three, or a "goodly company," seem to have been sprinkled over the smiling deep in Nature's frolic hour. These scenes are classic--History and Genius have hallowed them. War's shrill clarion once waked the echoes from these now silent hills--the pen of a living master has portrayed them in the pages of romance--and they are worthy of the admiration of the enlightened and the graphic hand of Genius.

Though differing from Lake George, Winnipisiogee resembles it in multitudinous and uncounted islands. Its mountains do not stoop to the water's edge, but through varied screens of forest may be seen ascending the sky softened by the blue haze of distance--on the one hand rise the Gunstock Mountains; on the other the dark Ossipees, while above and far beyond, rear the "cloud capt" peaks of the Sandwich and White Mountains. I will not fatigue with a vain attempt to describe the lakes that I have named; but would turn your attention to those exquisitely beautiful lakes that are so numerous in the Northern States, and particularly in New Hampshire. In character they are truly and peculiarly American. I know nothing in Europe which they resemble; the famous lakes of Albano and Nemi, and the small and exceedingly picturesque lakes of Great Britain may be compared in size, but are dissimilar in almost every other respect. Embosomed in the primitive forest, and sometimes overshadowed by huge mountains, they are the chosen places of tranquillity; and when the deer issues from the surrounding woods to drink the cool waters, he beholds his own image as in a polished mirror,--the flight of the eagle can be seen in the lower sky; and if a leaf falls, the circling undulations chase each other to the shores unvexed by contending tides.

There are two lakes of this description, situated in a wild mountain gorge called the Franconia Notch, in New Hampshire. They lie within a few hundred feet of each other, but are remarkable as having no communication--one being the source of the wild

Amonoosuck, the other of the Pemigiwasset. Shut in by stupendous mountains which rest on crags that tower more than a thousand feet above the water, whose rugged brows and shadowy breaks are clothed by dark and tangled woods, they have such an aspect of deep seclusion, of utter and unbroken solitude, that, when standing on their brink a lonely traveller, I was overwhelmed with an emotion of the sublime, such as I have rarely felt. It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were of the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.

I would not be understood that these lakes are always tranquil; but that tranquillity is their great characteristic. There are times when they take a far different expression; but in scenes like these the richest chords are those struck by the gentler hand of nature. [b. Waterfalls]

And now I must turn to another of the beautifiers of the earth--the Waterfall; which in the

• Essay on American Scenery Thomas Cole (You are here)

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Why does Cole think it is important to observe and paint American scenery? How does he think nature and humans should interact? How does one painting depict (or fail to depict) the ideals he discusses in his essay?

5 thoughts on “ Thomas Cole ”

In his essay, Cole expresses his fondness and preference for American scenery, which, in his opinion, “[is] unsurpassed” by other countries where “the primitive features of scenery have long since been destroyed or modified…to accommodate the tastes and necessities of a dense population” (108, 102). This can be clearly see in his painting The Course of Empire: The Consummation of Empire. In the painting, the once primitive scenery is now “crowned with towers, the rudest valleys [have been] tamed by the plough, [and the] impetuous rivers turned from their courses” (102). Cole acknowledges that America will soon fall victim to the same Fate, “but nature is still predominant” in the country at that time (102). Therefore, he believes that it is imperative for Americans to take advantage of this rural nature, which he see as “an unfailing fountain of intellectual enjoyment, where all may drink, and be awakened to a deeper feeling of the works of genius, and a keener perception of the beauty of our existence” (99). He urges people not to be apathetic in their interactions with nature. He then goes on to remark on the beauty of each element in American scenery (i.e. the water, the Waterfall, the mountains, the sky, the sunset, etc.) For example, his admiration for the Waterfall can be seen in his painting The Falls of Kaaterskill. In the painting, we see “a chain of waterfalls of remarkable beauty, where foaming waters, shadowed by steep cliffs, break over rocks of architectural formation” (105). His belief that the “waterfall may be called the voice of the landscape” is successfully conveyed through the painting (105).

Thomas Cole’s “Essay on American Scenery” suggests that he paints natural scenes to experience a particular emotional response—one he describes variably as “a calm religious tone,” “tranquility and peace,” and a feeling “as though a great void had been filled in our minds” (100, 103, 105). He writes about “the importance of cultivating a taste for scenery,” which practice he seems to define as the appreciation of nature’s physical beauty and the ability of that beauty to give us peace and perspective. The relationship with nature he describes seems disturbingly one-sided: nature, it would appear, exists to provide us with views and artistic material and psychological ease. Cole briefly mentions his “sorrow” that mankind’s “ravages of the axe” have been wrecking “the most noble scenes,” but he acknowledges his own ambivalence, saying, “This is a regret rather than a complaint; such is the road society has to travel” (109). When describing the first European settlers in America, he calls then “an enlightened and increasing people” who “with activity and power wrought changes that seem magical” (102). His appreciation of the wildness or savagery of nature is almost always coupled with a gratefulness for the beautiful or picturesque, for something to “temper” that vision of overwhelming power. He describes his wonder at “[the marriage of] grandeur and loveliness,” betraying his personal belief in the equivalence of beauty and goodness he mentions.

Cole’s painting, “View from Mount Holyoke,” can be read in a similar way: clouds brew over the dark, wild, uncultivated portion of the scene, while the exposed valley seems to have braved the storm and now appears bright, ordered, benign, and attractive. The land by “the Oxbow” appears cultivated, which the sunlight and left-to-right conventions of reading suggest we see as progress. It appears to be “lovely,” “peaceful,” and “charming”—all traits Cole values in his essay (106, 107). The broken spear in the left foreground may indicate some uncertainty—perhaps the same questions Cole posed in his essay about our destruction of the landscape and its wilderness—but it would represent a very subtly raised concern.

Cole seems to resort to nature as a balm—as many who champion the natural world do—but I have difficulty viewing his approach as other than somewhat superficial and irresponsible. He describes natural beauty as functioning like a mask, able to “cast a veil of tender beauty over the asperities of life” (101). Though the beauty of nature may have substantial, perceptible influence over his own psyche, he seems to turn to it for a band-aid-type distraction rather than a constructive solution. He does not seem to feel any obligation to protect or maintain the beauty of the landscape he exploits, which further characterizes his appreciation as a shallow one. In fact, his writings and works suggest that he may prefer the human-inhabited (but not -dominated), “tempered” world to its unknowable and intimidating, truly natural state.

It is obvious from the start that Cole is very passionate about the scenery he sees throughout the United States. He is enthralled with the landscape and describes it in terms of sublimity and magnificence. He seems to think that everyone should express the same love of nature and rural earth as he does. He talks about important events that happened with rural earth as the background: Elijahs witnessing of the mighty wind, earthquake, and fire on Mount Horeb, St. Johns preaching in the desert. Cole asserts that even in the city this beauty cannot be hidden. American scenery is what really appeals to Cole, and he compares it with European scenery to further his notion of how magnificent and beautiful the landscape is. He shuns those who favor the scenery of a different country over their own, and hopes that they “will know better how to appreciate the treasures of their own country” (101). He insists that although European scenery and American scenery differ, one must not think the latter inferior. Cole talks extensively about the sublime and rugged landscape that has barely been touched by humans. It is most distinctive, he says, because there is nothing like it in Europe, where it has all been modified. In every component of scenery he discusses, whether it be water, mountains, or waterfalls, he compares it to the European counterpart and makes a compelling argument in favor of the American landscape. He also makes a point of not only painting a beautiful image of only one specific place, but touching on the brilliance of all regions of the country. Cole encourages people to take in this scenery, and to let it generate emotion and reflection. Cole sets up a framework for a new appreciation of the sublime, untouched American landscape. In “The Falls of Kaaterskill,” Cole exhibits this feeling of fear alongside awe. The scene looks wild and untouched, but at the same time something that is worth appreciating, something that can only be found here.

Cole’s essay demonstrates his fondness in American scenery. Cole was born in England but emigrated to the United States in his late teens. His passion for American scenery is evident in his writing as he compares it to European scenery. He believes that every American should find great interest in American scenery, calling it “his own land” and stating that those who do not find interest in it should “shut themselves up in their narrow shell of prejudice.” He also believes that the human mind connects beauty with goodness and therefore sees beautiful things as inherently good. Cole acknowledges that American scenery is different than scenery in the old world but does not believe that it should be viewed as inferior. Cole distinguishes its wildness as the most impressive characteristic of American scenery, a trait that the scenery of Europe no longer possesses. His vision of American scenery as raw and untamed is contrasted with his vision of a refined, tamed European scenery. Cole focuses on predominantly on the northeast United States, highlighting the mountains, lakes and waterfalls as the most sublime elements in nature. Their purity and primitiveness separate them from similar features in Europe. Cole also references Autumn in the northern states as the most gorgeous season in all the world. His critique of American and European scenery concludes with his belief that Europe’s scenery is associated with its past while American scenery is associated with its present and future. Cole is nervous for the future of American scenery, fearing that it may be “cultivated” and “ravaged” in the years to come as the population in the United States grows. Although this displeases Cole, he understands that “such is the road society has to travel.” Cole’s reasoning for painting and observing American scenery and taking in its beauty is because it will inevitably evolve over time into a more cultivated land. He encourages people to take the time to enjoy the purity of rural nature, insisting that it will promote clearer thinking and a more peaceful mind. He wants people to value American scenery for its unique beauty that differs from old world scenery and to refrain from comparing it to that old world. Cole’s painting, Home in the Woods, depicts the beginning of settlement and cultivation of this new land. While the forest and mountains in the background still hold their raw and untamed character, the foreground shows the start of civilization building on the river bank. It is clear that “the ravages of the axe are daily increasing” as we see a house built of trees and a other wooden structures surrounding the house, including a canoe in the river. The immediate foreground shows what appears to be the remains of the part of the forest that the people used to build their house. The excess stumps and logs are a much less picturesque view than the vast forest in the background. This painting reflects the beginning of a growing population in the northeastern United States that would exploit nature for its resources, and in doing so, take away its pure beauty.

After reading Thomas Cole’s “Essay on American Scenery”, the first thing that evidently jumps out to the reader is his unconditional love and passion for the scenery that is present throughout the United States. In essence, the role that nature plays in his life is unparalleled and he believes that every American should be interested in and treat the scenery of America with the utmost of respect. Regardless of where you live in this country, the scenery that surrounds you is indeed beautiful and magnificent. Basically what he is saying that that no matter where you are, nature is truly amazing. In his eyes, there is nothing more special that gazing at what the Almighty has created, the landscape of our country. After I read this essay, I could’t help but think about how bold Cole is in his very firm belief of the importance of scenery. When speaking of people who do not view American Scenery as a glorious and incredible sign, he says “Let such persons shut themselves up in their narrow shell of prejudice” (101). While I myself am not a nature connoisseur, after reading this line there is not doubt that I thought Cole was indeed an “American Scenery Snob”. However, Cole that speaks about how there are many elements of nature that make the scenery of America so amazing. When talking about water, he says that on one hand an unrippled lake can represent tranquility and peace, while on the other a rapid stream can symbolize turbulence and impetuosity (103). This is just one of the elements of nature that makes is so stunning. When looking at his paintings “The Course of the Empire: The pastoral or Arcadian State”, much of what he says in his essay comes to life. He says that “We are still in Eden” (109), which I believe is his notion that the most beautiful things in life are already given to us by God. In this painting, there are so many elements of beauty that it is hard to refute that quote. The mountains, the trees, the lake, and the sky all play a fundamental role in this beauty that is given to us for free. In a world where everybody wants things for themselves, Cole makes the claim that American Scenery is the only thing we really need.

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American Scenery: Volume 1: Or, Land, Lake, and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature (Cambridge Library Collection - North American History) Printed Access Code – August 5, 2011

• Language English
• Publisher Cambridge University Press
• Publication date August 5, 2011
• ISBN-10 0511702582
• ISBN-13 978-0511702587
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press (August 5, 2011)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0511702582
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0511702587
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.8 ounces

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.