COLLECTION NAME:
The AMICA Library
Record
AMICA ID:
CMA_.1335.1917
AMICA Library Year:
1999
Object Type:
Paintings
Creator Name:
Cole, Thomas
Creator Nationality:
North American; American
Creator Role:
artist
Creator Dates/Places:
1801 - 1848
Gender:
M
Creator Birth Place:
England
Creator Name-CRT:
Thomas Cole
Title:
View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, After a Storm
Title Type:
Primary
View:
Full View
Creation Date:
1838
Creation Start Date:
1838
Creation End Date:
1838
Materials and Techniques:
oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Unframed: 99.8cm x 160.6cm
AMICA Contributor:
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Owner Location:
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
ID Number:
1335.1917
Credit Line:
Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection
Inscriptions:
signed lower left: T. Cole / Catskill 1838.
Provenance:
George Ackerly, the artist's brother-in-law (1838), to his widow, later Mrs. Jonathan Chapman (1848); Nicholas Matthews, Baltimore (New York sale 1914); (Holland Galleries, New York, bought by the Museum, 1917).
Context:
As America in the 1800s searched for symbols of national identity, painters found patriotic expression in landscape: the vast, untamed nature that came to represent American spirit. Cole first saw and sketched this view of the Adirondacks during a summer walking tour, but to dramatize the painting, he turned the scene into a blaze of autumn colors. He also elevated the vantage point to include a glimpse of the lake from which the mountain rises, thereby enhancing its height. The Native Americans hidden in the foliage prove that this is a wild, distinctly American land.Celebrated in his day as the founder of the American landscape tradition, Cole here appears to have represented each of the four elements: earth (the massive, silhouette mountain), air (which sweeps clouds around the peak), water (the lake and the rain at right), and fire (in the blasted trunks and crimson leaves).
Related Image Identifier Link:
CMA_.1335.1917.tif
