Artists
Thomas Cole
- Country:
- United States
- Birth year:
- 1801
- Death year:
- 1848
Thomas Cole emigrated to United States from England, he is considered to be father of American landscape painting. While in England, Cole had been an apprentice to a designer of calico prints, and in Steubenville, he found work drawing patterns and possibly engraving woodblocks for his father's paper-hanging business. He apprenticed a portrait painter called Stein. His works are influenced by by the landscapes of Thomas Doughty and Thomas Birch which he saw at the Pennsylvania Academy during a stay in Philadelphia from 1823 to 1825. In 1929 he took an overseas trip traveling through England, France, and Italy, he viewed works by the Old Masters and contemporary artists and explored European landscape sites. A second trip to Italy, from 1831 to 1832, inspired Cole with ideas of exploring high-minded and grand themes. In landscape paintings he created on his return, he expressed the moral issues and noble ideals that were usually the exclusive domain of history painters. Despite of his allegories and moral studies, to disappointment of Cole, American art lovers preferred his American landscapes. Some of his important works include The Course of Empire series, 1836 , Newyork Historical Society, The Voyage of Life, 1842, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art, Utica, New York.