The Titan’s Goblet

Thomas Cole prints bring the wild mountains, waterfalls and glowing skies of early America into your home. Cole founded the Hudson River School, the first great American landscape movement, and painted the Catskills and New England as a kind of untouched Eden. Our collection of fine art prints covers his landscapes, his famous allegorical series, his views of Italy and Mount Etna, and studies from his sketchbooks.

About Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole was born on 1 February 1801 in Bolton le Moors, Lancashire, and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1818, settling in Steubenville, Ohio. He worked early on as an engraver and was largely self-taught as a painter, learning from books and from other artists' work. He began as a portrait painter in 1822 before turning to landscape.

In New York he sold three paintings to George W. Bruen, who paid for a summer trip up the Hudson Valley. The views Cole brought back, of the Catskill Mountain House, Kaaterskill Falls and Fort Putnam, went on show in a bookshop window in 1825 and caught the eye of John Trumbull, Asher Brown Durand and William Dunlap. Trumbull bought a painting and introduced him to patrons such as Daniel Wadsworth.

From 1827 Cole kept a studio at Cedar Grove, a farm in Catskill, New York, and in 1836 he married Maria Bartow, a niece of its owners. He spent 1829–32 and 1841–42 abroad, mainly in England and Italy, and was deeply moved by Mount Etna. Frederic Edwin Church studied with him from 1844 to 1846. Cole died at Catskill of pleurisy on 11 February 1848. His home is now the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.

Style and Subjects

Cole's landscapes are romantic and often moody: storm clouds lifting over a valley, blasted trees, distant peaks and tiny figures dwarfed by nature. He sketched outdoors and then composed idealised finished pictures in the studio, a method Church learned from him. Many of his scenes frame the American wilderness as a natural paradise, in contrast to the smoky industrial England he grew up in.

He also painted ambitious allegories. The Course of Empire follows one landscape from wilderness to great city and back to ruin, and The Voyage of Life traces a traveller's boat from childhood to old age.

Famous Works

• Kaaterskill Falls (1826), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. The famous Catskill waterfall from one of his first Hudson Valley trips.
• The Garden of Eden (1828), Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth. Adam and Eve amid waterfalls, lush plants and deer.
• The Titan's Goblet (1833), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A dreamlike picture of a giant cup holding a whole landscape and sea.
• The Course of Empire (1833–36), New-York Historical Society. A five-part series showing the rise and fall of a civilisation in one landscape.
• The Oxbow (1836), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A storm clears over the Connecticut River, wild forest on one side and farmland on the other.
• The Architect's Dream (1840), Toledo Museum of Art. A figure reclines atop a column before a vision of buildings from every age.
• The Voyage of Life (1840 and 1842), Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, and National Gallery of Art, Washington. Four paintings following a voyager from childhood to old age.

Decorating with Cole Prints

Cole's big landscapes need room to breathe. The Oxbow or Sunrise in the Catskills makes a strong centrepiece over a sofa or fireplace in a living room, and suits lodge, cabin and traditional interiors with wood and leather.

The Voyage of Life works well as a set of four along a hallway or staircase, and the Italian views, such as View of Florence, add warm golden light to a study or dining room.

FAQ

What art movement was Thomas Cole part of?

Cole founded the Hudson River School, the American landscape movement that also included Asher Brown Durand and his pupil Frederic Edwin Church.

What is Thomas Cole's most famous painting?

The Oxbow (1836) is his best-known single painting. His series The Course of Empire and The Voyage of Life are equally famous.

Where can I see Thomas Cole's paintings?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New-York Historical Society, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Wadsworth Atheneum hold major works. His home and studio at Cedar Grove in Catskill, New York, is open to visitors.

What is The Course of Empire about?

It is a five-painting series showing the same landscape over generations, from wilderness to a great empire and then to decline and desolation.

Was Thomas Cole American or English?

He was born in Lancashire, England, in 1801 and moved to the United States with his family in 1818, where he did all his major work.

Related Artists

• Frederic Edwin Church: studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846 and learned his method
• Asher Brown Durand: early admirer and leading Hudson River School painter
• Albert Bierstadt: later Hudson River School painter of the American West
• Thomas Moran: later American landscape painter in the same tradition
• Jasper Francis Cropsey: Hudson River School painter of the next generation