Main piece-- Thomas Cole's The Oxbow
Thomas Cole (1801-48) was an American landscape painter born in England and moved to Ohio, United States in 1818 (Lagasse, 2010.). In October of 1825 Col. John Trumbell, an aging history painter stumbled upon Cole’s work in the window of a New York frame shop. Amazed by his work, Trumbell rushed to get his friend William Dunlap, a newspaper journalist. Soon after, they had the pleasure of meeting the young artist and bought two of his works for a mere $25. A few weeks later Dunlap sold Cole’s work for a huge markup, however he more than made it up to Cole by featuring him within one of his articles in a New York newspaper. This exclusive on Cole led to wealthy clients; this allowed him to raise his prices exponentially from a mere $25 to a resounding $400 for his Garden of Eden. While his rates fluctuated throughout his career, they continued to steadily increase in value. As Cole continued to be praised for his work in numerous critical tributes, he was eventually labeled as the founder of American landscape painting. It is said that rapid shift of interest from portraiture and historical painting to landscape during this time was due to America’s wealth coming from the land, with the majority of population being farmers (Henry, 1994).
In 1836, Thomas Cole created The Oxbow. Within this piece, Cole explores the sense of morality within humanity and expresses serious doubt in their expansion tendencies that lead to the destruction of the wilderness. If one peers at this piece carefully, Cole himself can be seen at his easel directly below the piece of cleared land that touches the cliffs of the dense forest (Arnason, 2010). By surrounding himself in nature, I believe Cole is trying to accentuate man’s ability to live harmoniously with an unaltered nature. Furthermore, the famous bend of the Connecticut River adds to the idea of questioning humanity's choices and what the future holds.
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