“The Oxbow”
Here is one from Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of Art.
“The Oxbow”, also known as “View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm”, is an oil on canvas painting by the English landscape artist, Thomas Cole, from 1836.
In this painting, Cole paints the Connecticut River Valley as visible from the top of Mount Holyoke in Northampton, Massachusetts. He prominently depicts the u-shaped bend, known as an oxbow, in the Connecticut River. At the time Cole painted this, this view of the oxbow was a well-known tourist attraction.
Cole noticeably divided the canvas into two sections. On the left side of the canvas, the scenery is wild and untamed with gray skies and rain falling down, as a storm passes away to the left. On the right side of the canvas, the landscape is a fertile farmed river valley, with cultivated fields framed out into squares, and a blue, sunny sky. The hill in the far back has visible logging scars on its slopes. What was once a wild landscape has been cut down and tamed by civilization.
In the center of the bottom of the canvas, Cole painted a self-portrait, placing himself amongst the scenery. As Cole paints a landscape, he stares back at the viewer. A craggy tree and rocks frame the foreground, adding depth to the perspective of the scene.
Through his art, Cole was commenting on industrialization and the dramatic environmental impact it was having on the American landscape. He shows two very different Americas, the wild rugged landscape before colonization and the cultivated farmland after.
In 1836, Cole was finishing up the last painting in his ambitious series, The Course of Empire, which he had worked on from 1833 to 1836. While painting the series, he suffered a bout of depression. His patron and friend, Lumen Reed, suggested Cole paint a stand-alone landscape, more suited to his style. Cole created this piece.
While working on “The Oxbow” in March 1836, Cole wrote in a letter to Reed,
“Fancy pictures seldom sell & they generally take more time than views so I have determined to paint one of the latter. I have already commenced a view from Mt. Holyoke—it is about the finest scene I have in my sketchbook & is well known—it will be novel and I think effective—I could not find a subject very similar to your second picture & time would not allow me to invent one.”
“The Oxbow” was exhibited in April 1836 at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design in New York City where it was purchased by Charles Nicoll Talbot for $500.
“The Oxbow“, or “View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm“, is part of the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in the United States.
For more on Thomas Cole, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
