Ripdaman Kaur
What is a landscape painting? A landscape painting is one which depicts nature’s beauty through sky, water (in forms of lake, river, waterfall etc), mountains, trees, deserts, forests etc. Landscape paintings tell us how beautiful landscape scenery is by treating these scenes as the work of art. Landscape painting is the view from the eye of a painter who portrays the beauty of nature to tell us what the beauty nature has shower on us and has asked nothing in return but the words of appreciation. The question we need to ask ourselves is that “do we really appreciate the natural beauty in a landscape painting or landscape scenery from the depth of our heart? Do we really feel elated being at landscape? OR We just do formalities by going to famous places around world because they are famous for their beauty? Have we ever asked ourselves that why a painter paints a landscape? What is the reason or passion they experience to paint a landscape? What can these paintings do?
Landscape paintings give painter a satisfaction of playing with colors. A painter can paint different shades of sky, trees, deserts, forest, etc. based on his or her imagination or emotions. Everyone knows that imagination has no boundaries or rules. In Cole’s view (as cited in Sanford) landscape painting is made through the memory and imagination of a painter (p. 43
7). To landscape painters, nature is their model of beauty. Painters always experience the feeling of liveliness and exhilaration in recreating a landscape in their own way. For instance, painting scenery with wide view of an island where the sun is setting at the mountain and slowly pulling all the light from the sky. Imagine that in the landscape sky is getting dark and so is the water. Imagine part of the ocean where sunlight is already out, it has dark shades of water and where there is still a little sunlight left, it reflects red, orange and yellow shades. The described landscape is natural scenery but if an artist wants then he/she can alter it. Artist can add different weather conditions and give it a completely different look which is a joy of landscape painting, a feeling of immortality.
Couple of centuries ago, Thomas Cole in his essay on American Scenery (1836) defined landscape painting and called it equal to “poetry” as one which “sublime and purify [our] thoughts, by grasping the past, the present, and the future…”. The sublimity and beauty of a landscape is delivered through the components of a landscape painting. These components are sky, water, trees, mountains, desert; they all have different significance in a landscape painting. They bring emotion, feeling and life to a painting, just like a portrait painting or a historical painting. As Cole gave an in depth detail of a landscape painting (1834 as quoted in Dunlap):
“In landscapes there is a greater variety of objects, textures, and phenomena to imitate. It has expression also; not of passion, to be sure, but of sentiment—whether it shall be tranquil or spirit-stirring. Its seasons—sun-rise, sun-set, the storm, the calm—various kinds of trees, herbage, waters, mountains, skies. And whatever scene is chosen, one spirit pervades the whole—light and darkness tremble in the atmosphere, and each change transmutes.” (p. 365).
All the components of landscape i.e. skies, waters, forests, trees, deserts have a character. A little change in atmospheric condition makes each component react differently. For instance, water which is the most important component of a landscape painting as Thomas Cole (1836) describes it “…without which every landscape is defective--it is water. Like the eye in the human countenance, it is a most expressive feature…”. Where it is a calm flowing river it gives a calm and soothing base to its surroundings but that is just one of its characters. Other character which Thomas Cole admire of water is “…one delightful quality in nearly all these lakes--the purity and transparency of the water… 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.”
After water another important component of landscape painting is trees. Every tree is different in a landscape painting as every tree depicts a different story similar to a figure painting or portrait where every figure or human has different in expression and feeling. Thomas Cole believed that like men, trees also have “character”. Where men don’t have to fight for their basic necessities and are “cultured” they don’t show different “characters”. Similarly, trees in cultivated lands are in harmony than trees in “wild and uncultivated” lands where they have to fight for their survival.
Like water and trees, sky also bear different character such as sunrise, sunset, cloudy, look after a thunderstorm (having a shade of dark where clouds are still filled with water and at the same time a clear sky of freshness). As Cole stated,
“Whatever expression the sky takes, the features of the landscape are affected in unison, whether it be the serenity of the summer's blue, or the dark tumult of the storm. It is the sky that makes the earth so lovely at sunrise and so splendid at sunset. In the one it breathes over the earth the crystal-like ether, in the other liquid gold.”
Mountains are that part of a landscape painting which sometime serves as a background, sometime foreground, and sometime the sole focus. They give paintings shape, color and season. A snowy mountain will give a winter look of scenery, a mountain covered with trees reflect spring. A sunset behind the mountains gives a completely different look and purpose to the landscape painting.
These components of a landscape painting make it sublime, picturesque and beautiful. They are the motivation behind a painter to paint a landscape. Today landscape paintings are not just famous but they are successful in arousing a feeling of oneness with nature but its history has a different story. Landscape paintings were considered a low level of art in the past; they were below historical paintings and portraits. Thomas Cole is one of the great American landscape painters who revolutionized the art of landscape painting.
Thomas Cole was born in 1801 in Lancashire, England. His family was Anglo-American and in 1818 they moved from England to America. After they were moved to America, Cole’s family struggled to make the ends meet and try to establish their business in Steubenville, Ohio where Cole joined them after working in Philadelphia as wood engraver. While staying with his family he designed prints for his father’s wall paper business. In his spare time, he began to practice painting oil landscapes using techniques he had learned from an itinerant artist. Shortly after there move to Steubenville, his father relocated his business to Pittsburgh. While working for his father Thomas did many sketches of landscapes in his free time. Thomas again traveled to Philadelphia in 1823 with the intent to refine his painting techniques and become a landscape painter. After studying painter’s landscapes in detail at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and a stay of one year in Philadelphia, Cole moved on to New York City. (Avery)
It wasn’t until his stay in New York that Thomas Cole was recognized by the art community as a potentially worthy artist. During a short trip along the Hudson River in 1825, Cole made a series of sketches of the landscape along the way. These three sketches when made into landscape painting by Cole lead to his discovery by John Trumbull who later recommended Cole’s work to two of his colleagues William Dunlap and Asher B. Durand. These three landscape painting marked a turning point in Thomas Cole’s life, his career as a landscape artist was to become very promising. Shortly after his “discovery” he helped found the National Academy of Design in 1826. Since than he made masterpieces of Landscape painting to name a few “The lake with dead trees”, “ The Kaaterskill fall”, “Expulsion from the Garden of Eden”, “The Oxbow” (Thomas Cole American).
Cole’s paintings are the examples of what he saw in the American scenery which other painters of the time failed to capture. Cole captured the wilderness which he argued as the “undefiled work of god” (Cole). Let us consider his paintings to get a clear idea of what he 
wanted to convey. His Kaaterskill fall painting shows the color of spring red, orange, green yellow on the trees and some of the trees have lost all their leafs. Trees cover the foreground and background of the painting with the mountains through which the stream of water is falling in the centre of the painting. The sky right above the water stream is dark with clouds, which is giving the feeling that clouds are about to shower. The sky in the right corner of the painting is clear, yet to be covered by clouds. This painting is the right blends of wilderness and colors of nature, which soothes viewers mind. To this painting of Cole, Trumbull said (as quoted in Dunlap), "this youth has done what I have all my life attempted in vain." (p. 360)
Another famous painting “The Oxbow” is a view from the Mount Holyoke. This painting is the view of the scenery right after the thunderstorm has occurred. The sky is getting clear f
rom the thunder darkness on the left foreground of the painting where the trees on the mountain depicts the wilderness. At the same time, the right side of the painting depicts the cultivated land which marks the presence of mankind. This cultivated land surrounds the ox bow shape lake which has derived its peculiar shape naturally. Cole portrayed the same on canvas without making any alteration to depict that men and nature live in harmony in America and not by dominating one another. He quotes “…scenes like these the richest chords are those struck by the gentler hand of nature.” (Cole)
Through his paintings, Cole wanted to arouse the feeling of appreciation toward American culture and art in his fellow American’s. In the course of 19th century, when America developed as a nation, nature in its sublimity came to be seen in nationalistic and patriotic terms. This was the time when America recently got its freedom from European Colonies, but was still living with European culture. Thomas Cole idea behind promoting Landscape art was to promote American Scenery among Americans. As stated by Sanford, "American poets and painters (of 19th century) turned to the sublime for emotional intensification of American scenery both to assert their personal freedom as romantic artists and to assert their cultural independence of Europe as Americans." (p. 435).
Cole raised his voice to ask a question to his fellow American in order to raise their feeling of patriotism toward American culture (1834, as quoted in Dunlap) "Will you allow me here to say a word or two on landscape? It is usual to rank it as a lower branch of the art, below the historical. Why so? Is there a better reason, than that the vanity (pride) of man makes him delight most in his own image?...” (p. 365). His question had a reason which every American of 19th century gave to American landscape painting when compared with European. Cole makes a point that European scenery has been coveted more than American because there are many heroic incidents have happened in and around those landscapes which added to the immortality of the European scenery. With this clear reasoning Cole was able to remove the negative bias towards American scenery. He was pushing viewers or critiques to put the focus on the features of the landscape rather than the glorious history associated behind (Cole).
Cole through his Essay on American Scenery highlighted the unheard and neglected beauty of America to Americans. Cole informs Americans that American scenery has all the quality of “sublimity and picturesque”. Cole try to make his fellow American aware of the natural beauty of America which is not just sublime like European’s but it is also a virgin because nobody has yet explored it. He wanted his fellow citizens to realize the fact that they should not ignore or destroy this beauty for the sake of growth. They should not follow Europeans blindly and destroy their own motherland which has nurtured our surroundings with beauty.
With the example of Thomas Cole’s work and his methods, we learn that landscape paintings have played a significant role in promoting awareness towards nature, cautioning mankind to control growth in lieu of natural destruction. Landscape paintings in early 19th century were instrumental in promoting nationalistic feeling across America.
At the same time, we learn that history can make a landscape of historical significance but not necessarily beautiful. A sublime landscape derives its beauty from the sublimity and characters of its different components. Standing in a beautiful landscape will give a sublime feeling to anyone who takes a moment to notice its character and immortality.
References
Avery, K. (2009 August). "Thomas Cole (1801–1848)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved on February 1, 2010, from
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cole/hd_cole.htm (biography of Thomas Cole)
Cole, T. (1836, January), “Essay on American Scenery,” American Monthly Magazine1, page 1-12, retrieved on February 1, 2010 from http://www.fandm.edu/x7309
Dunlap, W. (1834). “Thomas Cole-1820”, “History of the rise & and progress of the arts & design in the United States.” Vol. 2 (page 350 - 367). Retrieved on February 15, 2010 from http://www.archive.org/details/historyofrisepro02dunl (pdf of the book)
Cole’s Paintings, (n.d.). “Explore Thomas Cole” Retrieved on February 18, 2010 from http://www.explorethomascole.org/gallery/items/212 (for the reference of description of paintings)
Roque, Oswaldo R. (1982). "The Oxbow by Thomas Cole: Iconography of an American Landscape." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 17. Retrieved on February 1, 2010 from http://www.metmuseum.org/publications/journals/1/pdf/1512787.pdf.bannered.pdf
Sanford, C.L. (1957) “The Concept of the Sublime in the Works of Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant” American Literature, Vol. 28 p.434-448. Retrieved February 1, 2010, from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2922763
“Thomas Cole American, 1801-1848” (n.d.). The Collection National Gallery of Art. Retrieved on February 15, 2010 from http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pbio?5950
