Ruins in Arcadia Studies on Thomas Cole's Italian Landscapes 阿卡迪亞
National Taiwan Normal University Graduate Institute of Art History 國立臺灣師範大學藝術史研究所
Master’s Degree Thesis 碩士論文
Ruins in Arcadia Studies on Thomas Cole’s Italian Landscapes 阿卡迪亞的遺址 湯瑪士‧科爾之義大利風景畫研究
Advisor: Professor Dr. Candida Syndikus 指導教授：辛蒂庫絲 博士
Victoria Shia 夏志怡
August 2018 中華民國 107 年 8 月
Table of Contents
English Abstract ...... 3
Chinese Abstract ...... 4
Acknowledgments...... 5
1. Introduction ...... 6
2. State of Research...... 8
3. Thomas Cole’s Journeys to Italy ...... 15
3.1. Motivations and Goals ...... 15
3.2. First Journey: 1831–32 ...... 16
3.3. Second Journey: 1841–42 ...... 21
4. “The greatest of all landscape painters”—Thomas Cole and Claude ...... 27
5. Thomas Cole’s Notion of Arcadia ...... 32
5.1. Arcadia in Literature and Art ...... 32
5.2. Arcadia in Thomas Cole’s Art ...... 35
6. Ruins in the Roman Campagna: The Views of the Aqua Claudia ...... 40
6.1. The Aqueduct near Rome in Saint Louis (1832) ...... 41
6.2. Genesis of the Composition ...... 43
6.3. Roman Campagna, a Later Replica ...... 45
7. The Artist in Arcadia: Thomas Cole in Sicily ...... 47
7.1. The Discovery of Sicily as Travel Destination ...... 47
7.2. The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching—Landscape and Self-Portrait
...... 49
7.3. The Painter Before the Ruin ...... 51
7.4. The Views of Mount Etna from Taormina (1843) ...... 54
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7.5. Poetry and Painting—Thomas Cole’s Description of Climbing Mount Etna ... 64
8. Conclusion ...... 67
9. Bibliography ...... 69
Appendix: Selection of Thomas Cole’s Writings ...... 76
Illustrations ...... 89
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English Abstract
Motivated by the desire to benefit from the treasures in nature and art of Italy, the
English-American artist Thomas Cole (1801–48), eminent leader of the Hudson River
School, traveled to the bel paese twice in his life, in 1831–32 and 1841–42. During these visits, Cole not only took art classes in order to improve his skills, but also visited museums and historical places. Most importantly, he went on sketching trips, an activity essential for the creation of his future landscape paintings. After the journeys, Cole developed from his sketches paintings representing Italian landscapes with ruins. Aqueduct near Rome (1832; Saint Louis), Roman Campagna (1843;
Hartford), Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (1842–43; Boston) and Mount
Etna from Taormina (1843; Hartford) are examples of such studio paintings which are closely examined in this study. Premised on the notion that the pastoral theme is present in these works, Cole’s understanding of Italy as an Arcadian realm has been scrutinized.
The link between Cole’s works and the two Italian journeys has been profoundly analyzed. To that end, a selection of the artist’s literary accomplishments that echo the experiences made during the travels has been subjected to further examination. The results are confronted with outcome of the paintings’ visual analysis in order to present in detail similar structural features.
For the painter, Italy was definitely an ideal realm, a place rich in art, nature and culture, where he could—liberated from pressure of daily life at home—develop further his concepts of ideal landscape.
Keywords: Thomas Cole, Hudson River School, Italy, American landscape painting, ruins
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Chinese Abstract
渴望受益於義大利之自然與藝術瑰寶，英裔美國畫家、同時為哈德遜河派
(Hudson River School) 傑出創始人的湯馬士‧科爾 (Thomas Cole，1801–48)，在
其一生中，分別於 1831–32 年和 1841–42 年，兩度造訪義大利這美麗國度。科
爾在其旅居義大利期間，不僅參與藝術課程以精進技藝，也參訪了各博物館與
歷史名勝。更重要的，他還於旅遊中同時素描作畫，這對其事後的風景畫創作
有著至關重要的影響。在義大利的旅途之後，科爾藉其素描紀錄，描繪了義大
利風景與遺址。《羅馬附近之渡槽》(Aqueduct near Rome，1832；聖路易斯)、
《羅馬坎帕尼亞》(Roman Campagna，1843；哈特福德)、《塞傑斯塔神廟與藝
術家素描》(Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching，1842–43；波士頓) 以及
《自陶爾米納觀埃特納火山》(Mount Etna from Taormina，1843；哈特福德) 都
是這類工作室畫的例子，於本研究中有仔細的探討。這些畫作具有田園之主題，
在此前提下，本文詳細探究科爾將義大利視為阿卡迪亞之境的議題。
上述畫作與科爾兩次義大利旅行之間的關聯已被深入分析。為此，呼應藝
術家旅行經驗的部分文字作品已被進一步研究。其結果與畫作視覺分析的結果
相對，以仔細呈現相似的結構特性。
對畫家科爾而言，義大利絕對是個理想境地，是富饒藝術、自然和文化的
地方；他來自家鄉日常生活的壓力在那裡因而獲得釋放，也因此進一步醞釀、
滋長了他理想風景畫的創作概念。
關鍵字：湯馬士‧科爾 (Thomas Cole)、哈德遜河派 (Hudson River School)、義
大利、美國風景畫、遺址
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Acknowledgments
I owe my profound gratitude to my advisor, Professor Candida Syndikus, for providing me her professional guidance and instruction throughout my course of research. Her personal efforts not only helped but inspired me as well at every stage of my work. I am truly thankful for this.
I would also like to express my great appreciation to my committee members,
Professor Valentin Nussbaum and Professor Chia-Chuan Hsieh, for their valuable and constructive suggestions.
In addition, my sincere thanks go to my teachers and classmates of the GIAH at
NTNU who have supported and assisted me in every way, allowing me to achieve my goal.
I am especially grateful to my family for giving me the opportunity to follow my dream and the encouragement to realize it.
Finally, I would like to thank Professor Candida Syndikus once again. Without her, the completion of this thesis would have never been possible. I am, therefore, forever indebted to her.
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1. Introduction
Thomas Cole (1801–48), the English-born American landscape artist, is considered the founder of the Hudson River School, a mid-19th-century American art movement recognized for its realistic and detailed depictions of nature and the wilderness
(figs. 1, 2). As the leader of America’s first major art movement, Cole took part in forming the visual representation of the American landscape. While America offered impressive and virtually untouched natural sceneries to the painter, in southern
Europe he found a cultivated landscape, with ancient ruins bearing witness of a glorious past.
Thomas Cole toured Europe twice during his lifetime; the first trip was taken in
1829–32, and the second, in 1841–42. On both trips, he traveled to Italy, the destination where he could find “rich treasures in nature and art.” After both journeys to Italy, Cole produced paintings of ruins within the Italian landscape, including the
Aqua Claudia at the southern outskirts of Rome, which became rather popular due to his vedute, the temple of Segesta and the theater at Taormina in Sicily. These painted studio works include Aqueduct near Rome (1832; Saint Louis; fig. 3) and Roman
Campagna (1843; Hartford; fig. 4), comprising the experience of landscape outside
Rome, and the Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (1842–43; Boston; fig. 1) and Mount Etna from Taormina (1843; Hartford; fig. 27), fruit of his visit in Sicily.
All these paintings were meticulously prepared on site with drawings and oil sketches.
As this thesis strives to give an in-depth analysis of these selected artworks as case studies, the aim is to determine the impact of the two Italian trips on Cole’s artistic development, as well as the method Cole had for making his paintings. In that respect, my main interest focuses on Cole’s vision and representation of the Italian landscape as an ideal realm, accommodating ruins as relics of high culture. An
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analysis of a selection of Cole’s own literary works, prose and poetry, strives to show his ideas about nature and culture.
Since material on the subject exceeds what a Master’s thesis should contain, not all of Cole’s Italian landscapes were included in this study, which selectively concentrates on topographical, instead of imaginary, sceneries.
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2. State of Research
Due to Thomas Cole’s great popularity after he was rediscovered in the 1940s, scholarly research on his art has produced a remarkable body of literature. The following overview is, therefore, concentrated on the most important texts for the topic of this present thesis, Cole’s journey to Italy and the works produced subsequently. While biographical and art historical accounts started directly after his death, he was virtually forgotten during the first half of the 20th century. 1
Rediscovered in the mid-century, research flourished in the 1980s and 1990s. The work comprises scholarly articles, monographs, and exhibition catalogs.
A number of published sources from Cole’s lifetime including his own writings help to reconstruct the painter’s biography and to understand his motivations to go abroad. More than other artists, Cole showed a commitment and skill to verbal expression. His essays, lectures and poems, mostly published in journals such as The
Knickerbocker (New York), offer an insight into his aesthetical ideas and artistic work.2
Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities is such an essay, which can be regarded as a literary parallel to Thomas Cole’s painted landscapes of Sicily. He expressed in the text a romanticist view. It is a two-part essay Cole wrote after his trip to Sicily in
1843, published in The Knickerbocker in February of 1844.3 In the first part of the essay, Cole gives a brief outline of the history of Sicily along with a description of the
Sicilian landscape and local conditions through his eyes. His adventure ascending
Mount Etna is also recorded in this part. As for the second part, Cole focuses on
1 Alan Wallach, Review of “The Art of Thomas Cole, Ambition and Imagination by Ellwood C. Parry,” in: Archives of American Art Journal 28, no. 4, 1988, pp. 21–25, here p. 21. 2 On Thomas Cole as a writer see Joy S. Kasson, “Thomas Cole,” in: Eric L. Haralson (ed.), Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, New York and London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 89–92. 3 Thomas Cole, “Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities,” in: The Knickerbocker, New-York Monthly Magazine 23, no. 2, February, 1844, pp. 103-113; no. 3, March, 1844, pp. 236–244. 8
architectural antiquities of Sicily, portraying the ancient structures he visited, ending with his cautionary advice. Cole’s essay is a romantic depiction of nature with a slight influence of man, presenting the beauty of the natural landscape and, at the same time, stressing the intertwined past and future of man and nature.
Reverend Louis Legrand Noble (1813–1882) was not only Thomas Cole’s pastor at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Catskill, but also a close friend who knew the artist personally.4 Noble published his biography on Cole under the title The Course of
Empire, Voyage of Life and Other Pictures of Thomas Cole in 1853, providing an intimate portrait of the artist as a commemoration after the latter’s death. The third edition was differently titled The Life and Works of Thomas Cole, published three years later in 1856. 5 Containing Thomas Cole’s own essays, poems, journals, correspondence and descriptions of his paintings, the importance of this biography lies in the fact that it is a primary source of Cole’s life.
In 1834, William Dunlap (1766–1839) self-published his A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, making him the very first
American to write a book on the history of art in the United States.6 His book is a relatively random collection of biographies of early American artists with commentary, which offers a valuable record of the period. Cole let Dunlap edit some of his letters, among them also one on Cole’s first trip to Italy, which is included in a chapter on Cole in the third volume of A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts
4 John Dillenberger, The visual arts and Christianity in America: from the colonial period to the present, New York: Crossroad, 1989, p. 77. 5 Louis Legrand Noble, The Course of Empire, Voyage of Life and Other Pictures of Thomas Cole, N.A. (New York, 1853); 3rd ed. 1856; new edition Louis Legrand Noble, The Life and Works of Thomas Cole, ed. by Elliot S. Vesell, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964. 6 An analysis of Dunlap’s History is to be found in Maura Lyons’s monograph on Dunlap; Maura Lyons, William Dunlap and the construction of an American art history, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005; for Dunlap and his way of collecting artists’ narratives, as well as for his relationship to Cole, see especially p. 60. 9
of Design in the United States.7
In one of his fictional letters from Europe, published as a kind of travelogue under the title Notions of the Americans, Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor in 1828, none other than American writer James Fenimore Cooper, later better known for his
Leatherstocking Tales, briefly comments on Thomas Cole and his landscapes. 8
Cooper’s commentary begins by promising Cole a great future as a landscapist, continued by praising his taste and skill in idealizing the scenery, finally ending with the expectation of Cole to continue to study from nature. Since the 1950s, scholars occasionally highlighted common features in Cole’ paintings and Cooper’s texts when depicting landscape. 9 Cole and Cooper used a device that Donald Ringe called
“landscape series” to imply the passage of time in a single picture or description, fulfilling the purpose of delivering a moral theme within their works.10
Edited by John Bard McNulty (1916–2015), The Correspondence of Thomas
Cole and Daniel Wadsworth presents a small selection of letters between Cole and
Hartford artist Daniel Wadsworth (1771–1848), today preserved in the Watkinson
Library, Trinity College, Hartford, and in the New York State Library, Albany, New
York, in chronological order, including the text of nineteen unpublished letters dating mostly from 1826 to 1828. A letter written by Cole in Florence on July 13th, 1832, bears particular importance to this study.11 In this letter, Cole mentions his trip to
Italy, as well as the painting of ruined aqueducts he was working on at that time.
In 1988, Ellwood C. Parry III published his monograph on Thomas Cole titled
The Art of Thomas Cole: Ambition and Imagination in attempt to achieve a more
7 Dunlap, 1918, pp. 138–159; the account on the Italian journey is to be found on the pp. 153–155. 8 James Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans, Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor, 2 vols., London, 1828, here vol. 2, pp. 156–157; James F. Beard, Jr., “Cooper and his Artistic Contemporaries,” in: New York History 35, no. 4, 1954, pp. 480–495. 9 See the literature cited in the article of Donald A. Ringe, “James Fenimore Cooper and Thomas Cole: An Analogous Technique,” in: American Literature 30, no. 1, 1958, pp. 26–36. 10 Ibid., p. 27. 11 McNulty, Letters, 1983, no. 26 (Florence, July 13th, 1832), pp. 56–57. 10
profound understanding of Cole’s accomplishments and his preeminent place in
American painting of the mid-19th century. Being the first full account of Cole’s life and work since Noble’s biography, Parry’s eight-chaptered monograph is important for the present study as it gathers a plethora of primary sources, from Cole’s own artworks and letters to observations by his peers, to reconstruct Cole’s life. The book is on the one hand a chronological study of Cole’s œuvre and a biographical record of the painter’s life from 1825 till his death in 1848, and an iconographic study of Cole’s most important works on the other. As an illustrated catalog, however, it lacks a more careful systematic record of the relevant information for every work and it remains in many respects without the necessary in-depth evaluation of the assembled sources. As reviewer Alan Wallach, himself co-editor and co-author of a major exhibition catalog of 1994 dedicated to Cole,12 appropriately remarked, the use of this book is difficult as its author attempted to integrate different methodological approaches— biographical, stylistic and iconographical—into a strictly chronological order.13
American art historian and museum director Earl Alexander Powell III authored a monograph on Thomas Cole published in 1990.14 Revealing the life and theories of
Cole, Powell’s book concentrates on Cole’s works and their inspirational roots in the artist’s English contemporaries, the earlier French masters and the landscape of the
American East.
Published in 1981, Matthew Baigell’s Thomas Cole offers an overview of Cole’s life and work.15 After a concise chronology, Baigell introduces Cole and his career through its informative essay, proceeded by a catalog of Cole’s major works. The
12 Alan Wallach, “Thomas Cole: Landscape and the Course of American Empire,” in: William H. Truettner and Alan Wallach (eds.), Thomas Cole: Landscape into History, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 23–111. 13 Wallach, 1988, pp. 21–25, here p. 22. 14 Earl Alexander Powell, Thomas Cole, New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990. 15 Matthew Baigell, Thomas Cole, New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1981. 11
introductory essay not only outlines Cole’s career, but also uncovers the content and method of his work, as well as tells of the artist’s place and influence in early
American art.
The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience, 1760-1914 is an exhibition catalog edited by Theodore Stebbins and published in 1992. 16 This significant travelling exhibition opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and proceeded to the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Some of Cole’s major Italian landscape paintings executed in Italy or after the trips were present at the show including Dream of Arcadia (1838; fig. 10),17 L’Allegro
(1845), 18 Il Penseroso (1845),19 Interior of the Colosseum, Rome (about 1832),20
Aqueduct near Rome (1832; fig. 3),21 Mount Etna from Taormina (1843; fig. 27),22 A
View near Tivoli (1832),23 View of Florence from San Miniato (1837),24 and Salvator
Rosa Sketching Banditti (about 1832–40). 25 Stebbins’s opening article contains a consistent paragraph on “Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School in Italy” discussing the vedute Cole had produced under the impression of the Italian landscape experienced on the two trips.26
16 Theodore Ellis Stebbins (ed.), The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience, 1760- 1914, exhibition catalog, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1992/93, Boston: Museum of Fine Arts; New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992. 17 Dream of Arcadia, oil on canvas, 98.11 × 159.38 cm, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, inv. 1954.71. 18 L’Allegro, oil on canvas, 81.6 × 121.8 cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, signed and dated lower right: “T. Cole. / 1845.” 19 Il Penseroso, oil on canvas, 82.2 × 122.1 cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, signed and dated lower right: “T. Cole / 1845.” 20 Interior of the Colosseum, Rome, oil on canvas, 25.4 × 45.72 cm, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York, inv. 1964.71. 21 Aqueduct near Rome, oil on canvas, 113 × 171.2 cm, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in Saint Louis, inv. WU 1987.4. 22 Mount Etna from Taormina, oil on canvas, 199.71 × 306.39 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, signed and dated: “T. Cole / 1843;” purchase, inv. 1844.6. 23 A View near Tivoli, oil on canvas, 37.5 × 58.7cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 03.27. 24 View of Florence from San Miniato, oil on canvas, 99.50 × 160.40 cm, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, signature at the lower right: “T C.” 25 Salvator Rosa Sketching Banditti, oil on panel, 17.78 × 24.13 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 26 Stebbins, 1992, pp. 42–54. 12
Eleanor Jones Harvey’s exhibition catalog, The Painted Sketch: American
Impressions from Nature, 1830-1880 (Dallas Museum of Art, in June, 1998), was the first major publication focusing on the oil sketches of eight of America’s leading painters belonging to the Hudson River School.27 The catalog offers not only an insightful history of the various applications of oil sketches by the respective artists including Thomas Cole, but also a novel interpretation of this genre of preliminary draft, which was usually executed on site. Besides serving as preparatory sketches in the development of studio canvases, demonstrating how artists arrived at their final paintings, the oil sketch has gradually been considered an independent work of art, an artistic production in its own right. Regarding Thomas Cole, Harvey discusses a few of his oil studies as well as Cole’s portable sketch box, a piece of evidence showing the artist worked en plein air.28 For this context, her discussion of Cole’s Campagna di Roma (1832; fig. 13) 29 and The Ruins at Taormina (1842; fig. 29) 30 are of importance to this study.
John F. McGuigan, Jr.’s article, “A Painter’s Paradise”: Thomas Cole and his
Transformative Experience in Florence, 1831–1832, concentrates on Cole’s first trip to Italy, particularly on his sojourn in Florence.31 The author examines the crucial twelve months Cole lived and worked in Florence, providing a vivid reconstruction of
Cole’s life there, backed up by documents such as letters and diaries of Cole and his contemporaries. McGuigan believes Cole benefited much from Scottish landscape painter George Augustus Wallis (1770–1847), whose influence was no less than that
27 Eleanor Jones Harvey (ed.), The Painted Sketch: American Impressions from Nature, 1830-1880, Dallas Museum of Art in association with H.N. Abrams, 1998, p. 6. 28 Ibid., p. 120. 29 Campagna di Roma (Study for Aqueduct near Rome), oil on paper mounted on canvas, 21.59 × 29.21 cm, Alexander Gallery, New York; signed on the lower left: “T.C.” 30 The Ruins at Taormina, oil and pencil on board, 30.48 × 40.96 cm, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York. 31 John F. McGuigan, Jr., “‘A Painter’s Paradise’: Thomas Cole and His Transformative Experience in Florence, 1831-1832,” in: Sirpa Salenius (ed.), Sculptors, Painters and Italy: Italian Influence on Nineteenth American Art, Il Prato, 2009, pp. 37–52. 13
of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa.32 Besides supplementing Parry’s book with more precise details, McGuigan’s article also corrects some inaccuracies in it.
McGuigan considers Cole’s time spent in Italy to be rewarding and of great importance towards his art.
Thomas Cole: The Artist as Architect was published to accompany the exhibition of 2016 at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. This catalog provides an analysis of Cole’s architectural pursuits and their influence on his painting, including an essay by the curator, Annette Blaugrund, briefly mentioning the impact of Cole’s Italian journeys on his art. During Cole’s visits to Italy, he saw the ruins of the area, which not only fascinated him but changed his art as well.33
The goal of my study is to concentrate on a selection of Thomas Cole’s Italian landscapes, including Aqueduct near Rome (1832; fig. 3) and The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (1843; fig. 1), and to connect them with the two Italian journeys Cole made. The common theme of these landscapes is the ruined structure settled within an Arcadian-like environment. The way the ruins are depicted and their importance for Cole’s paintings is to be further looked into. Furthermore, it will be asked what visual and literary models shaped Cole’s ideas of landscape painting. How did he approach Italy? What was the country for him? What were his main goals when travelling there? What is essential is the research on the parallels between the paintings as first sources and Cole’s own accounts, especially his essay Sicilian
Scenery and Antiquities of 1844. Before, however, I shall strive to undertake an in- depth analysis of the paintings and their genesis, exploring the painter’s approach from the sketches produced on site to the final paintings executed afterwards in the studio and later replicas of the same subjects.
32 McGuigan, 2009, p. 47. 33 Annette Blaugrund, “Thomas Cole: The Unknown Architect,” in: Annette Blaugrund, Thomas Cole: The Artist as Architect, New York: The Monacelli Press, 2016, pp. 13–79, here p. 22. 14
3. Thomas Cole’s Journeys to Italy
3.1. Motivations and Goals
During his lifetime, Thomas Cole undertook two extended trips to Europe; the first one in 1829–32, and the second some ten years later in 1841–42.34 On both occasions, he also paid visits to Italy, which lasted several months. After his return, Cole mentioned having seen Rome and Naples as well as having spent time in Florence; he expressly noted the “rich treasures in Nature and art” of Italy, which helped him to shape his own work and ideas.35 Cole had his heart set on taking his trip with the goal of benefiting himself from studying the works of the old Masters.36 Furthermore, it was the beauty of the cultivated landscape and the remnants of Greek and Roman culture, which contrasted with the American wilderness.37 In Sicilian Scenery and
Antiquities of 1844, he speaks of the landscape’s “picturesqueness, fertility, and the grandeur of its architectural remains” to be found on the island.38 Another important aspect for the choice of the locations he visited was their genius loci. Therefore, he went to Sant’Onofrio in Rome and to Vaucluse in the Provence, places hallowed by the “footsteps and immortal verse” of the eminent poets Torquato Tasso and
Petrarch.39 Cole had a profound sense of the places’ historicity. Moreover, he equaled poetry and painting, which according to him both “sublime and purify [sic] thought, by grasping the past, the present, and the future.”40
34 Parry, 1988, p. 116. 35 McNulty, 1983, no. 26 (Florence, July 13th, 1832), p. 56. 36 McNulty, 1983, no. 14 (New York, March 11th, 1828), p. 33. 37 John K. Howat, American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987, p. 29. 38 Cole, 1844, p. 103 (see appendix no. 3). 39 Thomas Cole, “Essay on American Scenery, 1835,” in: John W. McCoubrey (ed.), American Art, 1700-1960, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965, pp. 98–110, here p. 108. 40 Ibid., p. 98. 15
3.2. First Journey: 1831–32
His first journey to the south began on May 14th, 1831, right after his trip to England and France.41 Traveling through France on the route to Florence, the artist appeared not to have been genuinely inspired by the landscape prior to his arrival in Italy.42 In his journal of August 25th in 1831, Cole expressed his fascination of the Italian landscape by claiming that he was not surprised the Italian masters “have painted so admirably as they have,” and further mentioned that “Nature in celestial attire was their teacher.”43
By steam vessel, Cole traveled first to Genoa, and then onwards to Livorno.44
Taking a carriage, he arrived in Florence by early June that year.45 Upon arrival, Cole gladly found a room in the same building where his old friend from New York, the
Neoclassical sculptor Horatio Greenough (1805–52), was also living.46 Greenough introduced Cole into the group of painters studying in Florence, which included his two brothers, John (1801–52) and Henry (1807–83), and in addition, John Gore
(1806–68), John Cranch (1807–91), Andrew Ritchie, Jr. (1782–1862) and Francis
Alexander (1800–80) afterwards.47 By the 25th of June, Cole had already acquired the first of what would develop into a regular succession of commissions for Italian landscape subjects from wealthy Americans traveling abroad. 48 It has to be emphasized that, when he went to Italy for the first time, Cole was not a beginner, but already an experienced and rather successful landscape painter in his early thirties. As early as in 1828, James Fenimore Cooper promised him a great future as
41 Parry, 1988, p. 115. 42 Powell, 1990, p. 56. 43 Noble, 1856, p. 138. 44 Parry, 1988, p. 116. 45 Ibid. 46 McGuigan, 2009, p. 40. Parry, 1988, p. 116. On Greenough in Italy see Elise Madeleine Ciregna, “‘An Example in the Right Direction’: Horatio Greenough’s Life and Work in Italy,” in: Salenius, ibid., pp. 19-35. 47 McGuigan, 2009, p. 40. 48 Parry, 1988, p. 116. 16
landscapist. 49 During that summer, Cole, nevertheless, started to take classes at the
Academy of Saint Luke in Florence, together with John Cranch, John Gore, and
Horatio Greenough’s brother, Henry.50 As an autodidact painter, he must have felt the need to improve his ability in depicting the human figure.
Leaving Florence on August 24th, Cole made a ten-day trip to Volterra with Henry
Greenough and John Cranch.51 Throughout the rest of 1831, Cole had some important projects in progress in his studio in Florence.52 The greater part of the seven months
Cole had been in Florence—from June, 1831, until January, 1832—was occupied by his work on A Wild Scene (1831–32; Baltimore), the largest canvas he painted there.53
The earliest figure painting Cole executed in Florence was likely The Dead Abel
(1831–32; Albany), painted as a study intended for a biblical subject of greater size.54
By the end of 1831, Cole was also producing studies for The Angel Appearing to the
Shepherds, a painting he finished in 1834.55 In January of 1832, as soon as A Wild
Scene was finished, Cole sent it back to New York, along with Sunset on the Arno
(1831; Montclair),56 for exhibition at the National Academy of Design.57 This was no surprise as not any of his figure studies or compositions were completed at the beginning of 1832.58
49 James Fenimore Cooper in his Notions of the Americans, vol. 2, London, 1828, pp. 156–157. 50 Parry, 1988, p. 116. 51 Ibid. 52 Cole mentions his studio in a letter of June 7th to his parents: “My painting-room is delightfully situated. From my window I have a fine view of Fiesole, a hill that Milton mentions in his Paradise Lost. My bedroom is neat; and over my bed is a small picture, covered with an embroidered curtain: it is ‘The true image of the Madonna of comfort’.” Noble, 1856, p. 130. See furthermore the letter to Wadsworth of July 13th, 1832; McNulty, 1983, no. 26 (Florence, July 13th, 1832), p. 57. 53 Parry, 1988, pp. 116, 375. A Wild Scene, oil on canvas, 129.7 × 194.5 cm, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, inv. 1958.15. 54 Parry, 1988, pp. 119, 375. The Dead Abel, oil on paper mounted on wood panel, 44.77 × 73.34 cm, Albany Institute of History and Art, inv. 1943.86, signed: “T Cole.” 55 Parry, 1988, p. 375. The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds, oil on canvas, 257.81 × 471.17 cm, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia. 56 Parry, 1988, p. 375. Sunset on the Arno, c. 1831, oil on canvas, 45.1 × 63.5 cm, Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, inv. 1964.84. 57 Parry, 1988, p. 118. 58 Ibid., p. 121. 17
Cole’s fame grew as A Wild Scene received wide acclaim on the other side of the
Atlantic.59 Soon he was getting numerous commissions for subjects on the Italian landscape, which led him to leave Florence for Rome to meet the requests of his patrons for paintings of ancient Roman ruins.60
On February 3rd, 1832, Cole traveled to Rome accompanied by his new friend,
Francis Alexander (1800–80), a portraitist from Boston, and a young American, John
H. W. Lane.61 Taking the path via Siena, they got to Rome within five days and found rooms in the Via del Tritone, which were soon switched for better ones on the Pincian
Hill.62 Cole and Alexander shared rooms and a studio for about three months in a house, where, according to legend, the very studio of Claude Lorrain had been located, as the painter himself states in a letter.63 During his stay, other than painting at his easel, Cole enjoyed sight-seeing, which also meant a search for motifs, and made a few short trips into the countryside. 64 By February 16th, Cole informed
Greenough, then in Florence, of their trip in Rome, mentioning going to places such as the Pantheon, making a brief stay at San Pietro in Vincoli to visit Michelangelo’s
59 McGuigan, 2009, p. 47. 60 Ibid. 61 Parry, 1988, p. 121. In a letter to his parents dated March 4th, Cole mentioned his companions to Rome included “Mr. A----, and Mr. L----, from Boston,” with Mr. L---- possibly being John Lane. If that is the case, we know further that John Lane was from Boston; Noble, 1856, p. 156. For the better known Francis Alexander, see http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/artist- info.53.html?artobj_artistId=53&pageNumber=1#biography (retrieved May 20th, 2018). 62 Noble, 1856, p.145; Parry, 1988, p. 121. 63 Dunlap, 1918, p. 154; see McGuigan, 2009, p. 47; Parry, 1988, p. 121. For Claude’s house in Rome see the account of Sweetser: “As soon as Claude’s position was well assured, he took rooms near the Church of Santissima Trinità de’Monti, close to the studio of Poussin. The view from this locality is well known as one of the most magnificent of all the wonderful panoramas from the Roman hills, looking across the Tiber to the Castle of St. Angelo and the Vatican, and out to the gray hills of Southern Etruria. What a noble prospect to be outspread daily before the eyes of the ardent and appreciative lover of nature!” Claude’s house was “on the crest of the southern extension of the Pincian Hill, where the Via Sistina widens at the head of the Spanish Stairs, and high above the Piazza di Spagna.” Claude had “established his new studio on the Pincian Hill.” Moses Foster Sweetser, Claude Lorraine, Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Co., 1878, pp. 48–50. In 1650, Claude moved to another house nearby in the Via Paolina (now Via del Babuino). Martin Sonnabend, “Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape,” in: Martin Sonnabend and Jon Whiteley (eds.), Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape, Oxford: Ashmolean Museum [et al.], 2011, pp. 9–17, here p. 10. 64 Parry, 1988, p. 376. 18
Moses, and seeing Saint Peter’s twice.65 Cole’s several excursions into the Campagna brought him to places as far as Tivoli, northeast of Rome, to make sketches of the cascades, and as far southeast as Ariccia as well as to the Alban Hills.66 It was at that time that he executed drawings and oil sketches for his later paintings Aqueduct near
Rome (Saint Louis; fig. 3) and Roman Campagna (Hartford; fig. 4).67 What Cole was busy painting included works such as the Head of a Roman called Christo, from
Nature (1832; Private collection) and the Head of a Roman Woman, from Nature
(1832; Private collection),68 rare examples of figure painting in his œuvre. In addition,
Cole studied the Colosseum, the Protestant Cemetery near the Pyramid of Cestius, where he—besides from sketching the scenery 69 —was certainly attracted by the tombs of the great English poets John Keats and Percy Shelley, the Fountain of Egeria and other well-known sites. 70 Concurrently, he was getting more commissions requested by American travelers.71
Before the end of the second week in May of 1832, Cole was in Naples, where he stayed for a few weeks.72 Cole took a few side trips from there.73 Towards the west, he traveled along the shores of the Bay of Naples, visiting Baia and Pozzuoli, to have a look at the Roman ruins; eastwardly, he went to Mount Vesuvius, the Phlegraean
Fields, Pompeii and Herculaneum.74 Cole was especially attracted by the sublime
65 Ibid., pp. 121–122. 66 Ibid., p. 122. 67 See below my chapter 6. 68 “The Roman heads that you have seen I painted there [that is, in Claude’s house].” Dunlap, 1918, p. 154. See also Parry, 1988, p. 122. 69 Oil sketch on canvas, 15.24 × 21.59 cm, Private Collection; the executed painting is View of the Protestant Burying Ground, Rome, c. 1833–34, oil on canvas, 82.6 × 111.8 cm, Olana State Historic Site, Taconic Region Hudson, New York, inv. OL. 1981.17. Parry, 1988, p. 122. 70 Fountain of Egeria, graphite pencil on off-white wove paper, 22.2 × 31.4 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.565.19. Parry, 1988, p. 122. 71 Parry, 1988, p. 122. 72 Ibid., pp. 124, 376. 73 Ibid., p. 125. 74 Ibid. 19
quality of the volcano, the outlines of which are recorded in a sketchbook.75 He also stopped by Camaldoli della Torre and, afterwards, Salerno.76 By May 23rd, Cole had traveled with a small gang far south along the Gulf of Salerno to the town of
Paestum.77 After a night at one of the shelters for marsh laborers, Cole created pencil sketches for future use of the solitary temples set up by the Greeks.78 The painting
Ruins of the Temples at Paestum was executed around 1832–33.79 Subsequent to his return to Rome, Cole apparently did not care to remain there for very long.80 Together with John Lane, Cole left for Florence again on June 5th,81 returning there on June
9th.82
In the early summer of 1832, the large painting of the Aqueduct near Rome
(fig. 3), created for Charles Lyman of Waltham, Massachusetts, was the main canvas
Cole was working on.83 The following few months in Florence were among the most joyful and productive of Cole’s entire career,84 in which he painted more than ten views.85 Cole seemed very pleased with his stay in Florence, claiming in a letter of
January 31st in 1832 to J. L. Morton, Esq. that he had spent several “agreeable” months there.86 Probably at the end of July, Cole learned of his parents’ illness and wish to have him back home.87 He was, by early August, sending word to his friends that he had decided to head straight back home. 88 The wish to see Venice and
75 Panorama of the Bay of Naples, c. 1832, pen and brown ink over graphite pencil on off-white wove paper, 22.5 × 34.3 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.566.6. 76 Parry, 1988, p. 125. Parry spells the names of some places wrongly. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. See the pencil sketches in one of his notebooks in the Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.566.106, 39.566.108, 39.566.109, 39.566.112, 39.566.114, 39.566.118. 79 Ruins of the Temples at Paestum, 1832–33, oil on canvas, 37.47 × 58.42 cm, Private collection. 80 Parry, 1988, p. 125. 81 Ibid. 82 McGuigan, 2009, p. 48. 83 Dunlap, 1918, p. 155; Parry, 1988, p. 126. 84 Parry, 1988, p. 126. 85 Ibid., p. 376. 86 Noble also tells us in his book on Cole that “Next to home itself, Florence was to Cole the happiest place in which he ever lived.” Noble, 1856, pp. 131, 139, 142, 144. 87 Dunlap, 1918, p. 155; Parry, 1988, p. 127. 88 Parry, 1988, p. 127. 20
Switzerland remained unfulfilled.89 At last, once more in the company of John Lane,
Cole left Livorno for New York on October 8th.90 Cole’s ship reached the United
States on November 25th,91 bringing an end to his one-and-a-half-year journey in Italy.
During his sojourn, Cole enjoyed concentration on his work, typical for foreign artists in Italy. He stated: “what I believe contributes to the enjoyment of being there
[in Italy; my remark] is the delightful freedom from the common cares and business of life—the vortex of politics and utilitarianism, that is forever whirling at home.”92
These remarks about the “delightful freedom” the traveler enjoys in Italy remind
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s exclamation in his Italian Journey: “Oh, if only I could send my distant friends a breath of the more carefree existence here!”93 This sensation of independence and the freedom from any constrictions of daily work and family responsibilities stimulated artists and writers.
3.3. Second Journey: 1841–42
The second journey to Europe, which was again planned as a round trip, started in his native country England and included again a stay in Italy. With this trip, Cole had obviously some goals in mind, first to gather visual material on the countryside for further works, to visit important museums, such as the Louvre in Paris, in order to learn of the old masters and probably also to expand his network of European clients.94
According to his journal entry for November 9th, 1841, Thomas Cole and
89 Dunlap, 1918, p. 155. 90 Parry, 1988, p. 127. 91 Ibid. 92 Dunlap, 1918, p. 155. 93 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey [1786–1788], London: Penguin, 1962, p. 103 (Venice, October 12th, 1786). 94 George Washington Greene, “Cole,” in: Biographical Studies, New York: G. P. Putnam, 1860, pp. 74–120, here p. 103. 21
American artist Thomas P. Rossiter (1818–71) had reached Rome on that day.95 There,
Cole was pleased to obtain a place for resting as well as a studio for painting.96 Two days later, on November 11th, Cole wrote home informing his wife that he was finally in Rome.97 By this time, Cole had already begun making chalk marks upon a large canvas as well as finished a small sketch for a picture of The Fountain of Vaucluse.98
On November 30th, Cole wrote to his wife mentioning that the picture of Vaucluse was not yet completed, though much developed.99 In the same letter, Cole told his wife of his decision to repaint The Voyage of Life anew according to memory and with the help of the several tracings and sketches he had with him.100
As stated by George Washington Greene (1811–83), the American consul in
Rome between 1837 and 1845, in a chapter of his Biographical Sketches (1860), dedicated to Thomas Cole, the painter had sought out for himself a “quiet little studio in the Babuino, with a bedroom on the same stairway.”101 This was the studio in which Cole finished the second set of The Voyage of Life and a small landscape of an autumn scene from somewhere near Catskill in the winter of 1841–42.102 Besides painting steadily before his easel, Cole took many sight-seeing and sketching trips into the country, beginning with stopping by Sant’Onofrio, where Torquato Tasso, the
Renaissance poet, was buried.103 Greene offered an overview to the sites Cole visited, which included, among others, the Vatican and the Capitoline Hill, the rich landscapes of the park of the Villa Doria Pamphili and the church of Sant’Onofrio on the
Gianicolo, the Villa Borghese and its park on the Pincio and, finally, the Campagna at
95 Parry, 1988, p. 265. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid., p. 378. 98 Ibid., p. 265. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid; Greene, 1860, p. 104. Located in the very heart of historic Rome, Via del Babuino is located near the Corso and connects Piazza del Popolo and Piazza di Spagna. 102 Parry, 1988, p. 265. 103 Ibid. 22
the outskirts of the city. 104 Cole also attended soirées in order to make acquaintances.105 As he wrote in a letter to his wife on February 6th, 1842, for the duration of a month or six weeks, practically every night had been occupied in making social calls or at dinner gatherings and evening parties, including ones held by
Prince Torlonia and by the French ambassador.106 The artist also reported in this letter that the first and third pictures of The Voyage of Life were finished, yet his second was still just a “castle in the air.”107
As soon as Cole’s first three pictures were done and the fourth almost finished,
American artist Luther Terry (1813–69) lent his studio to Cole in the Vicolo dell’Orto di Napoli, near Via del Babuino, for a short while so that the series could be displayed favorably. 108 George Washington Greene arranged to invite Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770–1844), then a septuagenarian, to be one of the first official guests to view the works.109 In a letter of April 2nd, Cole mentioned to his wife that the second set of The Voyage of Life was practically completed following merely four months of labor, and it was making a very good impression on all those who had seen it.110 He also revealed to his wife his intentions to set off for Sicily the next week.111
While Cole prepared to leave for his trip to Sicily, the second set of The Voyage of Life was exhibited in Rome, after a few weeks of private showings in Luther
Terry’s studio.112 This journey to Sicily, remaining for around six weeks, was made in the company of Samuel James Ainsley (1806–74), an English artist and fellow
104 Ibid., p. 266; Greene, 1860, p. 105. 105 Noble, 1856, p. 315. 106 Parry, 1988, p. 266. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., p. 267. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid., p. 268. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid., p. 270. 23
landscape painter.113 The two men departed Rome in early April, making the trip by land to Naples to begin with, then by boat over the Tyrrhenian Sea to Palermo.114 In
Palermo, a guide by the name of Luigi, a muleteer he later mentioned in Sicilian
Scenery and Antiquities, three mules, and one more horse were appointed for touring the entire island.115 The primary stop for them following Palermo was at Segesta, where Cole did drawings on the 22nd and 23rd of April (fig. 18).116 Before moving on to Syracuse, the ancient capital, on the eastern side of the island, Cole and Ainsley went along the southern coast of Sicily to see the ruins at Selinunte and Agrigento.117
By May 9th, the two had made it to Catania and decided to ascend Mount Etna early in the morning before sunrise.118 In 1842, Cole wrote a poem that echoes his experiences of the ascent.119 Two years later, a detailed report of the adventure is to be found in
Cole’s essay Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities; an abridged version of the poem is included in this text.120 In order to show the mules the path over the lava beds, an additional guide and a man carrying a lantern were required.121 On May 10th, Cole and
Ainsley reached the peak of the volcano just in time to see the rising sun.122 After an hour or so at the summit, the two artists began their way downwards, taking a slightly different path from the one taken upwards.123 This route brought them beyond an ancient altar as well as along the border of a large crater at the side of the volcano known to be the Val del Bove (Valley of the Oxen).124 Cole and Ainsley continued
113 Ibid. See also Noble, 1856, pp. 324–329. 114 Parry, 1988, p. 270. 115 Ibid. Cole, 1844, p. 109. See appendix no. 3. 116 Parry, 1988, p. 270. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. See also the vivid description of the ascent in Noble, 1856, pp. 325–329. 119 Marshall B. Tymn (ed.), Thomas Cole’s Poetry. The collected poems of America’s foremost painter of the Hudson River School reflecting his feelings for nature and the romantic spirit of the nineteenth century, York, Pennsylvania: Liberty Cap Books, 1972, pp. 134–135. See also appendix no. 2. 120 Cole, 1844, pp. 110–113. See appendix no. 3. 121 Parry, 1988, p. 270. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid., p. 271. 124 Ibid. 24
northward to the town of Taormina, where Cole formed drawings of the view from the
Graeco-Roman theater on May 16th.125 Lastly, the two men went across the northern border of the island until they arrived at Palermo, ending the tour of Sicily hurriedly.126
Cole had returned to Rome from his trip by the evening of May 20th.127 The next day, May 21st, Cole wrote to his wife, sending word to her of his plans for homecoming and informing her on the progress of The Voyage of Life series.128 Neatly put together with a brief sketch of his journey, the main intent of his letter was to report to his wife the state of his own physical health, which was much improved due to the Sicilian trip.129 Cole also mentioned his intention of bringing his four pictures of The Voyage of Life to England.130
Before leaving Rome on May 27th, Cole suddenly realized that transporting The
Voyage of Life to England would have been terribly costly, while the risk of damage to the works was also a concern.131 As an alternative, sending the paintings by sea, a much safer option, would not have been possible since time was running short.132
Eventually, Cole shipped the repainted series back to New York directly with the consideration of bringing or sending them to England afterwards for public display and possible sale.133
With the desire to be in England to board the steamship Great Western soon enough, Cole took the fastest way northward, by water from Rome towards Genoa, then onwards by land reaching Milan.134 During his stay in Milan, Cole saw Leonardo
125 Ibid. 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid., p. 272. 130 Ibid. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 25
da Vinci’s Last Supper in its ruined condition within the Convent of Santa Maria delle
Grazie, in addition to various drawings of the Renaissance master in the Ambrosian
Library.135 In June of 1842, Cole passed the Lago Maggiore in order to arrive in
Switzerland and onwards to England,136 marking the end to Cole’s second, and final, journey to Italy.
Apart from the fact that the travels described above provided him with invaluable memories, Cole returned home with a great number of oil sketches and notebooks filled with pencil drawings all executed on site. With these drawings, he not only memorized outlines and single motifs of the respective location, but he also tried to capture the atmosphere of the moment, filling his notebooks with descriptions of the situation on the spot. These visual recollections offered him a veritable treasure for his work, from which he benefited for many years.
The trips to Italy also brought change to Cole’s art. After seeing the ancient ruins of Italy during his journey, Cole was inspired to create lofty themes in his artwork.137
Especially after his first trip, the architectural details in the artist’s sketchbooks became more and more evident in his paintings.138
135 Ibid. 136 Ibid. 137 Blaugrund, 2016, p. 22. 138 Ibid. 26
4. “The greatest of all landscape painters”—Thomas Cole and Claude
While Cole’s writings—his letters, diaries, and essays—reverberate a persistent admiration for the greatest of the old masters, one artist is more often mentioned and more highly praised than all others, the French landscapist Claude Lorrain (1600–82).
Cole’s works—and not least those representing Italian sceneries—owe much to the
French landscape painter. Cole’s contemporaries, too, felt his close proximity to
Claude. It was, therefore, only understandable that someone would call him
“American Claude,” as Samuel B. Ruggles did in a letter to William H. Seward dated
July 24th, 1841.139 In order to better understand the form and substance of Cole’s
Arcadian landscapes with ruins on the one hand and his concept of the ‘sublime’ on the other, it seems appropriate to highlight further his relation to the master.
Claude Lorrain, the earliest great French artist to specialize in landscape painting, is regarded as one of the most distinguished masters of ideal landscape (figs. 6, 7,
8). 140 Claude’s contribution to ideal landscape painting was his unique way of rendering light to unify his compositions and to create a particular atmosphere in the scenery.141 He contributed to setting autonomous landscape painting on an equal level with history painting, the highest form of Western painting, thus elevating the status of landscape painting.142
Having emerged in Venice about 1510, ideal landscape painting subsequently
139 “My dear governor, Our ‘American Claude,’ (Tom Cole) at my instigation has painted, in his peculiar autumn style, a picture of the great gorge of the Genesee at Portage.” Quoted after Parry, 1988, p. 222 (University of Rochester Library). 140 Édouard Kopp, Capturing Nature’s Beauty: Three Centuries of French Landscapes, exhibition catalog, Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2009, p. 10; Arne Neset, Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture, New York [et al.]: Peter Lang, 2009, p. 32. 141 Michael Kitson, “Claude (le) Lorrain [2003],” in: Grove Art Online, in: http:////www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao- 9781884446054-e-7000018011 (retrieved May 20th, 2018). 142 Richard Rand, “Between Nature and Culture: an Introduction to Claude’s Drawings,” in: Richard Rand, Antony Griffiths and Colleen M. Terry (eds.), Claude Lorrain: the Painter as Draftsman, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 21–43, here p. 22. 27
developed as an artistic genre presenting perfected natural scenery.143 Elements from classical antiquity, like ancient ruins, are often included within the landscape of such works.144 The fusion of nature and classical ruins evoke nostalgic sentiments for the past and recall a lost paradise, Arcadia, a legendary idyllic region strewed with destroyed monuments.145 The inspiration for ideal landscapists is the pastoral beauty of the Roman Campagna, a countryside on the outskirts of Rome where remains of antiquity pervade.146 Roman ruins were characteristic motifs in Claude’s works.147 A favorite of the British aristocracy, Claude was widely appreciated in England throughout the late 17th and 18th centuries.148 The obsession for Claude in England was so great that it would not be overstating to claim that almost all his works, including paintings, drawings and prints, have been in English collections at one time or another.149 It is known that by 1830, around two-thirds of Claude’s paintings were in English collections.150
While in the era of Enlightenment, concepts of Nature and landscape were developing, Claude’s works became, for a period of time, the measure for landscape painting.151 This is also echoed in Cole’s words when, for example, confessing to
Dunlap:
143 Kitson, 2003. 144 Neset, 2009, p. 32. 145 Argyro Loukaki, “Greece: ancient ruinous landscapes, aesthetic identity, and issues of development,” in: Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 30, no. 1, 2004, pp. 147–164, here p. 148. 146 Neset, 2009, p. 32; Sonnabend, 2011, p. 17. 147 Paul Zucker, Fascination of Decay: Ruins: Relic, Symbol, Ornament, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Gregg Press, 1968, p. 47. 148 Moses Foster Sweetser, Titian. Guido Reni. Claude Lorraine, Riverside, Cambridge: Houghton, Osgood, 1880, p. 82; Timothy J. Standring, “Claude Lorrain. San Francisco, Williamstown and Washington,” in: The Burlington Magazine 149, no. 1250, French Art, May, 2007, pp. 356–357, here p. 356. 149 Sonnabend, 2011, p. 17. 150 Kitson, 2003. 151 Sonnabend, 2011, p. 17. 28
“Claude, to me, is the greatest of all landscape painters: and, indeed, I should rank him with Raphael or Michael Angelo. Poussin I delighted in, and Rysdael for his truth, which is equal to Claude, but not so choice.”152
And in another context, he says:
“The works of the Old Masters have been my greatest study and admiration. In Landscape my favourites are Claude and Gaspar Poussin; but not to the exclusion of others.”153
In that regard, he compares the work of Claude and the French-Italian artist Gaspard
Dughet (Gaspard Poussin; 1615–75).154 Cole, moreover, confronted the works of the two fellow countrymen Claude and Nicolas Poussin, much to the benefit of the former:
“He [N. Poussin] has not the glowing and elaborate beauty of Claude.”155 Here, he underlines Claude’s way of using the marked chiaroscuro which gives the landscape a shimmering quality. When reading Cole’s judgement of William Turner’s later works, which he considered “to have an artificial look” and to “be fine, but […] not true,”156 it becomes once more obvious, what he was interested in: “Nature, in her most exquisite beauty, abounds in darkness and dullness; above all, she possesses solidity.”157 In Cole’s eyes, the late Turner lacked the gravitas that was imminent in
Claude Lorrain’s paintings.
Claude’s paintings of pastoral landscapes (figs. 7, 8) served as models for imitation among many artists, less in Italy and France, but all the more in England and
America. 158 Cole was much indebted to Claude’s characteristic compositional devices.159 The use of golden light and framing motifs seen in Cole’s paintings were
152 Dunlap, 1918, p. 156; Noble, 1856, p. 171. 153 Noble, 1856, p. 120. 154 Gaspard adopted the name Poussin from his master, Nicolas Poussin. On Dughet see Marie-Nicole Boisclair, “Dughet [Poussin], Gaspard,” in: Oxford Art Online, in: http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao- 9781884446054-e-7000023968?rskey=PQ452s&result=2 (retrieved May 20th, 2018). 155 Noble, 1856, p. 304. 156 Noble, 1856, p. 114; Dunlap, 1918, p. 158. 157 Noble, 1856, p. 114. 158 Kitson, 2003. Sonnabend, 2011, p. 17. 159 Parry, 1988, p. 191. 29
deeply influenced by Claude.160 It is known that Cole carefully studied Claude’s works in the museums.161 Another important source for his followers, with Cole being no exception, was the large set of Claude’s drawings after his own paintings published as aquatint etchings in the so-called Liber Veritatis (now British Museum, London; fig. 6); what was meant by Claude as a means against forgery, accelerated subsequently the dissemination of his compositions.162
Cole’s Italian Scene, Composition (fig. 5), executed after the first journey to Italy in 1833, 163 owes much to Claude’s pastoral landscapes, a fact that can be demonstrated by a comparison with the latter’s Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of
Titus of 1644164 and Pastoral Landscape with the Ponte Molle of 1645 (figs. 7, 8).165
Claude’s scenes represent an ideal realm inspired by topographical elements of the
Roman Campagna, in which he integrates—as in a capriccio—architectural elements borrowed from other contexts, such as the Arch of Titus and the Ponte Molle. These newly invented landscapes with recognizable items recall a somewhat familiar yet unattainable far-off place. Claude does not attempt to make his sceneries realistic, but instead idealizes them. His views are, therefore, not topographically accurate in a strict sense.
In his Italian Scene, Composition, Cole, too, combines landscape elements he had found at the actual sites of the Roman Campagna with the architectures reminding the
160 Ibid., p. 192. Standring, 2007, p. 356. 161 December 14th, 1829; Parry, 1988, pp. 101, 118 (Cole, 1829 notebook, pp. 16–17, Cole Papers, NYSL). 162 Claude Lorrain, Liber Veritatis. Or, A Collection of Two Hundred Prints, After the Original Designs of Claude le Lorrain, in the Collection of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, Executed by Richard Earlom, in the Manner and Taste of the Drawings [...], 2 vols., London: John Boydell, 1774–77; additional vol., London: Thomas Davison, for Hurst, Robinson, & Co., 1819. Michael Kitson and Marcel Roethlisberger, “Claude Lorrain and the Liber veritatis, I–III,” in: The Burlington Magazine 101, 1959, pp. 14–24, 328–337, 381–388. 163 Italian Scene, Composition, 1833, oil on canvas, 95.2 × 138.4 cm, The New-York Historical Society, inv. 1858.19. 164 Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of Titus, 1644, oil on canvas, 102 × 135 cm, Private Collection; inscribed indistinctly and dated 1644. 165 Pastoral Landscape with the Ponte Molle, 1645, oil on canvas, 74.5 × 98 cm, Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery; inscribed lower left: “Claudio Roma 1645.” 30
round Temple of Vesta in Tivoli on the left hand side and the Aqua Claudia on the right part of the painting. The overall composition of the painting that distinguishes a foreground with small figures, a hilly middle ground with ruins, and a background with high mountains standing out against a clear sky recalls Claude’s way of structuring his pictures. The sections are parallel to the picture surface.
Cole’s painting shows an apparent influence of Claude’s chiaroscuro effect. The bold contrasts of light and shadow evidently emphasize the pictures’ division into three main sections: the darker foreground, the lighter middle ground, and the clear background.
The arrangement of figures in the foreground is a device Cole learned from
Claude. The minuscule staffage figures make the entire natural scenery appear monumental. Cole includes ruins in his painting and combines these ruins with bucolic scenes that contain shepherds and livestock. Such designs are found in
Claude’s work, too.
Cole also picked up the way Claude handled the light in his painted scenes.
Chiaroscuro was used to highlight the details and to make contrasts. For example, lighter colors on the surface of figures or animals help outline their shape; dark-toned trees set against the bright-colored sky form strong contrasts. Like Claude, Cole would also manipulate the light on his picture plane to make it softly glow through the painted trees, creating a warm atmosphere felt around the leaves of the partly transparent tree.
Cole unquestionably inherited from Claude his way of constructing compositions, which, as a result, became Cole’s own formula for creating serene, harmonious scenes, a painting strategy that would recur in Cole’s art.
31
5. Thomas Cole’s Notion of Arcadia
5.1. Arcadia in Literature and Art
Arcadia, the visionary pastoral setting of tranquility, leisure and beauty, has long been widely appealing as an artistic subject, both in literature and visual arts, ever since ancient times. The name Arcadia points out to two parallel phenomena, one being factual, the other fictive.166 The factual Arcadia (Greek: Ἀρκαδία) is a mountainous region in central Peloponnesus in southern Greece, with relatively isolated residents living simple, pastoral lives in olden days.167 The fictive Arcadia, instead, as it appears in antique literature, was envisioned as an imaginary dreamland, which draws on aspects of the existing geographical location only along general lines. 168 As the projection of the poets’ imagination, Arcadia is a world of no definite location and no precise time.169 Fancied as an ideal place unreachable to outsiders, the legendary
Arcadia is depicted as a peaceful, pleasant rural landscape inhabited by herders of sheep, goats or bovines.170 The god of Arcadia is Pan, a creature that is half goat, half man.171 According to classical writers, Arcadian shepherd-poets and their deity, Pan, would join to make music.172
The Greek poet Theocritus of Syracuse (308–240 BC) was the first to compose pastoral poems, his Idylls, establishing the genre of bucolic poetry.173 Theocritus’
166 Vernon Hyde Minor, The Death of the Baroque and the Rhetoric of Good Taste, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 61. 167 Stephen J. Tonsor, “Arcadia,” in: Jean-Charles Seigneuret (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs, Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1988, pp. 105–112, here pp. 105–106. 168 Ibid., p. 106. 169 Luba Freedman, The Classical Pastoral in the Visual Arts, New York [et al.]: Peter Lang, 1989, p. 106. 170 Elettra Carbone, Nordic Italies: Representations of Italy in Nordic Literature from the 1830s to the 1910s, Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2016, p. 87. 171 Allan R. Ruff, Arcadian Visions: Pastoral Influences on Poetry, Painting and the Design of Landscape, Oxford: Windgather Press, 2015, p. 1. 172 Ibid. 173 Martha Hale Shackford, “A Definition of the Pastoral Idyll,” in: PMLA 19, no. 4, 1904, pp. 583–592, here p. 584; Mark Heerink, Echoing Hylas: A Study in Hellenistic and Roman Metapoetics, Madison, Wisconsin and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015, p. 54. 32
poems were closely imitated by the Roman author Virgil (70–19 BC), who in his
Eclogues (also: Bucolics), written around 42–39 BC, finally, invented the place known to be Arcadia (4:58–59), relating to the respective rural region of Greece.174
The music of the Arcadians includes songs performed during singing contests which were usually associated with the fundamental questions of humanity: life and death, love and loss, freedom and bondage.175 It has been correctly underlined in more recent research that Virgil’s Arcadian herdsmen are confronted with both fortune and misfortune.176 Therefore, poetry is considered a perfect remedy for the hardship of life.177 The vision of Arcadia constantly includes nostalgic undertones.
Besides singing about emotions aroused by love and loss, the Arcadian shepherds also praise the enjoyment of their lives and surroundings.178 Such songs reveal the life of the Arcadians, a life of innocence and contentment, in perfect harmony with
Nature. Main facets of this spiritual Arcadia are, hence, pastoral pleasure and apparent simplicity. 179 Due to their seeming unity with Nature, herdsmen were stylized to advocate an ideal life. It comes from a yearning for bliss and freedom from sin, with the belief that happiness is achieved through joining Nature and leaving the civilized world behind.180 Arcadia can, thus, be seen as a version of paradise, which is difficult to be reached.
The pastoral tradition remained a source of poetic inspiration even after the
174 Paul J. Alpers, Publius Vergilius Maro and Virgil, Bucolica, Berkeley [et al.]: University of California Press, 1979, p. 2; Ruff, 2015, p. 8. Although not original, the title Eclogae (Engl.: Eclogues) for Virgil’s bucolic poetry prevails today. Nicholas Horsfall, “Some Problems of Titulature in Roman Literary History,” in: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies: Bulletin (BICS) 28, 1981, pp. 103–114, here pp. 108–109. David Rosand, “Giorgione, Venice, and the Pastoral Vision,” in: Robert C. Cafritz, Lawrence Gowing and David Rosand (eds.), Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape, Washington, D.C.: Phillips Collection, 1988, pp. 20–81, here p. 26. Brooks Otis, Virgil, a Study in Civilized Poetry, Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995, p. 97. 175 Rosand, 1988, p. 39. 176 See the introduction by Gregson Davis to Len Krisak (ed.), Virgil’s Eclogues, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010, pp. vii–xviii, here esp. pp. ix–xiii. 177 Ibid., p. xiv. 178 Shackford, 1904, p. 587. 179 Neset, 2009, p. 30. 180 Marsha S. Collins, Imagining Arcadia in Renaissance Romance, New York: Routledge, 2016, p. 6. 33
classical period.181 In the Renaissance, Italian poet Jacopo Sannazaro (1457–1530) developed from Virgil his literary work Arcadia, the earliest pastoral romance in
European literature. 182 Composed in the 1480s, Sannazaro’s Arcadia was first published in 1502, and then once more in 1504.183 Being immensely successful, the pastoral novel was extremely popular not only in Sannazaro’s lifetime but also afterwards up to the later 18th century.184 This was due to the fact that the book embodied the trends of thought of its time.185 Another possibility would be that it was written in the vernacular and could hence reach a wider audience.186 The inspiration for all later Renaissance and Baroque pastorals originates from this famous work.187
The pictorial quality of Arcadian poetry has inspired Renaissance artists. In early
16th-century Venice, landscape painting developed in line with poetry. 188 The atmosphere of literary Arcadia was well captured by Venetian artists such as Giovanni
Bellini (c. 1431–1516), but especially Giorgione (c. 1477/78–1510) and Titian (c.
1488–1576).189 It was in their art that the earliest visual records of the pastoral took form. The significance of the Venetian artists to the pastoral tradition was in the development of the idea of painting as a sort of poetry.190
Then, it was through 17th-century artist Claude Lorrain that the Arcadian
181 Rosand, 1988, p. 26. 182 Ruff, 2015, p. 37; Matteo Soranzo, “Jacopo Sannazaro (1457–1530),” in: Gaetana Marrone and Paolo Puppa (eds.), Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies, New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 1674– 1678, here pp. 1675, 1677. 183 Collins, 2016, pp. 52–53; Freedman, 1989, p. 113. 184 Freedman, 1989, p. 113. 185 Ibid. 186 Rosand, 1988, p. 26. 187 Gerhart Hoffmeister, “Profiles of Pastoral Protagonists, 1504–1754: Derivations and Social Implications,” in: Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand (eds.), From the Greeks to the Greens: Images of the Simple Life, Madison, Wisconsin and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, pp. 18–33, here p. 18. 188 Dagmar Korbacher, “Poetic Printmaking: Arcadia and Engravings of Giulio Campagnola,” in: Art in Print 4, no. 5, January–February, 2015, pp. 7–8. 189 Rosand, 1988, pp. 21–77. 190 Ruff, 2015, p. 35. 34
landscape became most fully and steadily developed as a pictorial theme.191 Since he was living in Italy for the most part of his life, Claude was also well aware of the artistic development of the Venetian 16th century.
5.2. Arcadia in Thomas Cole’s Art
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there were a number of writers and artists who viewed Italy as Arcadia.192 This association of Italy with Arcadia was not a
Romantic invention, as images of Arcadia are already set in Sicily in both Idylls of
Theocritus and Eclogues of Virgil.193 On the one hand, the artists could draw on these and the Renaissance literary sources. On the other, they studied the Arcadian phenomenon in the earlier visual arts. The pastoral landscapes of Claude Lorrain were certainly the most important references for European and American painters searching for the inspiration of Arcadia.194 Some details in his paintings, though, seem to derive from the knowledge of paintings by Giorgione and Titian, as will be shown below.
Being an artist of the 19th century, Cole was perhaps no exception to those who saw
Italy as Arcadia. It was probably because of this notion that led him to his own journey to the country in 1831, to find inspiration in Arcadia.
Inspired by the experiences of his Italian journeys, Cole depicted his image of
Arcadia in three of his paintings, the titles of which include the place name. These
191 Robert C. Cafritz, “Classical Revision of the Pastoral Landscape,” in: Robert C. Cafritz, Lawrence Gowing and David Rosand (eds.), Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape, Washington, D.C.: Phillips Collection, 1988, pp. 82–111, here p. 107. 192 Andrea Mariani, “Sleeping and Waking Fauns: Harriet Goodhue Hosmer’s Experience of Italy, 1852–1870,” in: Irma B. Jaffe (ed.), The Italian Presence in American Art, 1760-1860, New York: Fordham University Press, 1989, pp. 66–81, here p. 66. 193 Carbone, 2016, p. 88. 194 Christian Rümelin, “Claude Lorrain and the Notion of Printed Arcadian Landscapes,” in: Art in Print 4, no. 5, 2015, pp. 12–16. Sonnabend, 2011, p. 17. 35
paintings are The Course of Empire: The Pastoral or Arcadian State of 1834,195
Dream of Arcadia of 1838, and An Evening in Arcadia of 1843 (figs. 9–11).196 A close look at them may provide an idea of Cole’s Arcadian vision.
The canvas titled The Course of Empire: The Pastoral or Arcadian State (fig. 9) is the second painting in The Course of Empire series, representing one site in a cycle of five different states and eras in a transition from a primitive society to an advanced civilization.197 Cole’s description of the cycle, published in the November issues of
The American Monthly Magazine and The Knickerbocker of 1836, helps to better understand the iconography.198 Situated between the negatively connoted Savage State and the Consummation of Empire, where decadence foreshadows the final
Destruction, Cole interprets Arcadia as a visual localization of an ideal, albeit fugitive, condition. The painter chose a Claudian landscape—even though a North
American scenery might be intended—that is peopled with small figures leading their lives in harmony with Nature within a peaceful landscape illuminated by a fresh morning light, “a few hours after sunrise, and in the early summer.”199 The people in the painting are miniaturized with regard to the huge trees in the foreground and the dramatic mountain massif in the background. Unlike in Claude Lorrain’s landscapes, where small figures are often integrated into coherent mythological scenes, Cole’s figures rendered in miniature are each engaged in their own business, apparently at peace with the vast land: a woman is working with distaff and spindle; an old man is carving geometric forms on the ground; a young boy is drawing a figure, maybe loosely referring to the anecdote of young Giotto learning to draw after nature related
195 The Course of Empire: The Pastoral or Arcadian State, 1834, oil on canvas, 99.70 × 160.66 cm, The New-York Historical Society, inv. 1858.2. 196 An Evening in Arcadia, 1843, oil on canvas, 82.87 × 122.87 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Bequest of Clara Hinton Gould, inv. 1948.190. 197 Noble, 1856, pp. 176–177. 198 Thomas Cole, “Cole’s Pictures of the Course of Empire,” in: The Knickerbocker 8, November, 1836, p. 629 (see appendix no. 1). 199 Ibid. 36
by Giorgio Vasari.200 The theme of the soldier roaming through a serene landscape could be derived from early-16th-century Venetian painting, for example, in the works of Giorgione and early Titian. The latter’s Sacred and Profane Love, for example, was already to be seen in the Borghese Collection in Rome during the 19th century; it is known that Cole had visited the park on his second journey to Italy.201
Even though, the small figure scenes are composed independently, they are united by one integrating idea. The setting for this picture is clearly a pastoral one, as a shepherd tends his grazing flocks near the center in the middle ground and a group of
‘Arcadians’ are enjoying themselves in the shade of a big tree, listening and dancing to the sound of a pipe. At the same time, Cole alludes to the idea of the lost paradise, with a farmer ploughing a field on the left middle ground or the already mentioned spinning woman as a possible reference to Adam and Eve. “In this picture, we have
Agriculture, Commerce, and Religion,” comments Cole.202 Culture is in the making, but Cole’s Arcadia is not an enduring place as there are soldiers depicted on the left, and the boy is drawing “a man with a sword.”203
Cole’s painting Dream of Arcadia in Denver, created around 1838, shows, instead, an idyllic scene of ancient Greece (fig. 10).204 This is implied by a Doric temple in the middle ground. Just like that in The Pastoral or Arcadian State, there is also a group of small figures occupied with dancing and music-making in Dream of
Arcadia; such an image of entertainment reflects the simplicity and contentment of the Arcadians. The middle ground center accommodates a reclining shepherd beside several goats, signifying that the landscape depiction belongs to the pastoral genre.
200 According to Vasari, young Giotto draws a sheep after nature. Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori, vol. 1, Florence: Sansoni, 1878, pp. 370–371. 201 Parry, 1988, p. 266; Greene, 1860, p. 105. 202 Cole, 1836, p. 629. 203 Ibid. 204 Parry, 1988, p. 203. 37
The painting’s composition resembles The Arcadian State insofar as Cole used the same structural elements, clearly dividing the picture space in a strip parallel to the lower edge in the foreground peopled by small figures, in a middle ground with fields, meadows, and an architectural ‘eye-catcher,’ the prehistoric stone ring in The
Arcadian State, the Doric temple in The Dream of Arcadia, both indicating the early state of Religion; in the background, the horizon is concealed by an area of steep mountains. The clear skies animated by some fair-weather clouds contribute to the paintings’ serene atmosphere.
An Evening in Arcadia (fig. 11) was executed right after Cole’s second journey to
Italy, in 1843. It displays a view of the banks of an undisturbed river in the foreground with a huge natural bridge formed by a rock massif in the middle ground to be observed against a dramatic backlight; through the monumental arch, seemingly formed by Nature, a sunbathed plain extends into the depth of the pictorial space.205
Unlike the former two Arcadian paintings, in which lush green fields smoothly blanket the landscape, the natural scenery in An Evening in Arcadia appears rather rough and craggy. Nevertheless, the only two figures in the painting are at ease within their environment, with one playing a lyre and the other dancing.206
Dream of Arcadia and An Evening in Arcadia reveal two aspects of Cole’s vision; the former, a scene full of cheerfulness and joy, and the latter, one filled with a melancholy mood.207 More than the other two works, The Arcadian State expresses the idea that the earthly paradise is transient. It is not difficult to find certain common features in the three works. They all represent some secluded area with vegetated surrounding, distant mountains, bright skies and still waters. Moreover, they all contain the portrayal of merry people taking up leisure activities in the natural setting,
205 Neset, 2009, p. 44. 206 Ibid. 207 Mariani, 1989, p. 70. 38
a sign implying that the individuals not only enjoy but are in harmony with Nature as well. These elements bring to mind the ideal place known as Arcadia. Only some of the details, however, suggest that this realm could be threatened.
Arcadia is also known to be a place filled with ruins. 208 In the pictorial representations of Arcadia made in the 16th and 17th centuries, ruins play a critical part.209 The broken structures are often shown as arches and columns of Roman origin included in the landscapes.210 The appearance of ruins not only suggests the inevitable end of all man’s greatness, it as well evokes the motif of the Golden Age, a peaceful, prosperous period during which people lived in ideal happiness in a past civilization.211 The profound opposition of nature and civilization is reflected through the ruins within Arcadia.
208 Loukaki, 2004, p. 148. 209 Neset, 2009, p. 31. 210 Ibid., pp. 31–32. 211 Ibid., p. 32. 39
6. Ruins in the Roman Campagna: The Views of the Aqua Claudia
It was during his stay in Rome in February of 1832 that Cole undertook trips to the rural area surrounding the city. Ancient Roman ruins became now a common subject of his landscapes. One of the iconic landscapes in central Italy to be identified by poets and artists with the mythic Arcadia was, in fact, the Campagna just outside
Rome. Especially the southeastern plain with the Alban Hills in the background was a popular location for artists and tourists since the 18th century.212 What makes the vista even more impressive is the apparently endless line of the ancient Roman aqueduct, the Aqua Claudia (AD 38–52), a part of the water conduit above the ground, which in antiquity provided the capital with water.213 This monument, which in the 18th and
19th centuries had already been in a ruinous state for a long time, was considered as a spectacular testament to the sophisticated building skills and culture of Roman imperial time.
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s Goethe in the Roman Campagna from
1786–87 (Frankfurt, M.) shows the plane with the aqueduct and the lining Alban Hills in the far background (fig. 12).214 Consequently, Thomas Cole was not the first to discover the scenery as a major subject for his paintings. He created, however, a composition of the view which, as will be shown, became groundbreaking for the
212 See an early account by the Irish travel writer Thomas Nugent (c. 1700–72); Thomas Nugent, The Grand Tour, or, A journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France, vol. 3, London: Jay Rivington and Sons, 1778, pp. 292–293. 213 Built under the emperors Caligula and Claudius in AD 38–52, the Aqua Claudia was one of the “four great aqueducts” of ancient Rome. On the monument, which nowadays is incorporated into an archaeological park, see Samuel Ball Platner, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, ed. by Thomas Ashby, London: Oxford University Press, 1929, pp. 22–23 (available online http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLAT OP*/Aqua_Claudia.html (retrieved March 4th, 2017). Thomas Ashby, Jun., “The Four Great Aqueducts of Ancient Rome,” in: The Classical Review 14, no. 6, 1900, pp. 325–327; Deane R. Blackman, “The Volume of Water Delivered by the Four Great Aqueducts of Rome,” in: Papers of the British School at Rome 46, 1978, pp. 52–72. 214 Oil on canvas, 164 × 206 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, M. On this painting see especially John F. Moffitt, “The Poet and the Painter: J. H. W. Tischbein’s ‘Perfect Portrait’ of Goethe in the Campagna (1786-87),” in: The Art Bulletin 65, no. 3, 1983, pp. 440–455. 40
reception of this landscape.
6.1. The Aqueduct near Rome in Saint Louis (1832)
In his painting Aqueduct near Rome (Saint Louis) of 1832, Thomas Cole depicts a monumental view of the partly collapsed ancient water bridge in the Roman countryside (fig. 3).215 The work was commissioned by a certain Charles Lyman of
Waltham, Massachusetts, who at that time stayed in Rome as tourist.216 While little more than the name of this person is known, the time of execution can be narrowed down to Cole’s stay in Florence in July, 1832. There is a remark about it in a letter to
Daniel Wadsworth from Florence; Cole wrote: “I am now engaged on a view of some ruined Acqueducts [sic] in the Campagna of Rome.”217 In a letter of August 28th,
1834, William Dunlap urged Cole to, finally, submit a text for his History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States: “you must not leave me so abruptly—something must be said of the Aqueduct picture—and others—your impressions of Italy & Italian art.”218 In the published third volume, Dunlap quotes
Cole as saying: “In that three months [that is June to August, 1832; my remark] I painted the Aqueduct picture, the view of the Cascatelles [sic] of Tivoli, and several others.—O that I was there again, and in the same spirit.”219
The composition of the landscape is clearly divided into three main parts, the
215 Aqueduct near Rome, 1832, oil on canvas, 113 × 171.2 cm, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in Saint Louis, inv. WU 1987.4. 216 William L. Coleman, “Spotlight Essay: Thomas Cole’s Aqueduct near Rome (1832),” in: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Spotlight Series, February, 2016, in: http://kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/files/spotlightFEB16.pdf (retrieved January 7th, 2017); Dunlap, 1918, p. 154. 217 McNulty, 1983, no. 26 (Florence, July 13th, 1832), p. 57. 218 William Dunlap to Thomas Cole, August 28th, 1834, Thomas Cole Papers, Courtesy of the New York State Library (Albany), Manuscripts and Special Collections, Archives of the of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, roll ALC-1 (Letters of Cole, 1833–1834). Here quoted after Lyons, 2005, p. 63, no. 23. 219 Dunlap, 1918, p. 155. 41
front foreground, the middle ground, and the far background. The subject of the painting, the Aqua Claudia, runs from the left to the right side and from the foreground to the background, gradually diminishing and, thus, functioning as a visual link between the image’s planes. Along the ridge of a gently sloping hill in the middle ground, the ruins of the aqueduct stand in the sun, fencing the wide, grassy meadow on the right-hand side, which is to some extent kept in darker colors as it is in the shade. As part of the aqueduct is broken into fragments, especially in the middle ground, openings of various sizes gap the fence-like structure. Towards the left end of the destroyed aqueduct, a succession of arches remains intact and stretches into the far distance. A decayed windowed watchtower, the medieval Tor Fiscale, built into the aqueduct rests at the broken monument’s right end, giving in to the moss and weeds that grow relentlessly through its stout masonry walls. Moss and weeds are also gained on top of the fragmented aqueduct.
The tower’s vertically uprising mass provides a compositional counterbalance to the string of the aqueduct leading into the depth of the picture plane. Underneath, a pile of fallen capitals and columns lies against the foot of the tower and at the borders of a small pond, gathering greenery over time. Below the dismantled pile, across the pond, a tiny skull sits on the piece of land next to it, serving as a memento mori. Atop a rock parallel to the lower border of the picture partly covered with plants on the far right corner in the foreground, a goat stands solitarily facing the unseen sun, a livestock that perhaps belongs to the shepherd who is herding his flock in the meadow near the broken aqueduct in the middle ground.
The background of the painting is lined by the massive range of the Alban Hills that loom over the landscape, towering above the man-made aqueduct.220 A crescent
220 The painting has been discussed by Eleanor L. Jones in the respective catalog entry of The Lure of Italy, however, with an incorrect location of the view “toward the Sabine hills;” Stebbins, 1992, p. 260. 42
moon hangs slightly to the mountaintop’s upper right, fainted by the strong sunlight coming from the right side of the picture. Finally, patches of clouds drift in the clear skies just above the massive mountains, filling the space in the picture’s upper right, thus bringing balance to the entire composition.
6.2. Genesis of the Composition
Cole used to prepare his paintings with the help of drawings and sometimes with oil sketches. The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (fig. 1) shows the painter in action. We do not know how many sketches the artist produced for this painting. It is likely that a part of them are lost today.
The picture titled Campagna di Roma (fig. 13) is one of Thomas Cole’s preparatory oil sketches for his Aqueduct near Rome in Saint Louis (fig. 3).221 It renders the final composition of the painting in Saint Louis quite precisely, while the rough technique is typical for a plein-air oil sketch.222 A noticeable difference is the color temperature and the related atmosphere in both works. There is an overall murky impression in this muddy-colored picture, in which the impasto technique was adopted. Paint was thickly applied and heavy, clearly visible brush strokes were used in the making of this picture. Dark colors, such as black and brown, dominate the painting with the exception of bright yellow and white in certain areas. In contrast to the executed painting in Saint Louis, there are no pencil lines to be found under the oil paint.223
221 Campagna di Roma (Study for Aqueduct near Rome), 1832, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 21.59 × 29.21 cm, Alexander Gallery, New York; signed on the lower left: “T.C.”. 222 See the analysis of Eleanor Jones Harvey, in: Ead. (ed.), The Painted Sketch: American Impressions from Nature, 1830–1880, exhibition catalog, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998/99, Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art in association with H.N. Abrams, 1998, p. 115. 223 Ibid. 43
Just like the final painting, the middle ground of the picture is taken up by a hilly plain with the ruins of the Aqua Claudia aqueduct on the hilltop. The leftmost dark, rectangular shape, the tallest element on the paper, is the Tor Fiscale, connected to the destroyed aqueduct on its left. The lumpy structures at the center of the painting represent the fragments of the broken aqueduct. The height of the aqueduct reduces as it stretches towards the right side of the picture.
Resembling the final painting, the background of the study is also composed of a range of mountains and a cluster of clouds against the sky; however, the area of clouds and the color of sky differ. In the final picture, clouds drift above the mountains in the bright blue sky on the right side of the painting, whereas in the study, the cluster of clouds hangs over the tower in the grayish sky on the left side. The arrangement of the ruined aqueduct in the middle ground and the mountain range in the background is very similar to that of the final production, with the study being much more simplified, and the final painting, more detailed and well-developed.
Elements such as the bricks and square windows of the tower, greenery over both the tower and aqueduct, and arches of the aqueduct are well-defined in the final work, while the shapes in the oil study lack particularity. At the right corner of the sketch’s foreground, a man in red, along with several goats he leads with his stick, was later replaced by a solitary goat standing atop a rock in the final painting. Where the rest of the foreground is covered mostly by black paint with smears of brown color in the study work, a small pond with vegetated edges and a tiny skull take form in the final work. Due to its dark palette and the vivid cloudy sky, the oil-sketch makes a more somber impression.
A second oil sketch, today at the New Britain Museum of American Art (fig. 14),
44
can be associated with the painting in Saint Louis.224 Both works are about the same size and show a rather similar composition, the tower with the aqueduct running across the picture plane, a strip of raised terrain in the foreground with figures and the chain of the Alban Hills standing out against a bright sky. The work shares the same sketchy manner with the painting in New York showing thick brushstrokes. Stronger chiaroscuro contrasts and the rising moon imply that the sketch grasps the same view at a later hour of the same day. In the final work (fig. 3), Cole highlighted the atmosphere of a warm and sunny evening with the application of bright colors contrasting with warm shadows.
6.3. Roman Campagna, a Later Replica
In 1843, right after his second trip to Italy in 1841–42, Thomas Cole returned once again to the motif of the Aqua Claudia in a painting today in the Wadsworth
Atheneum, Hartford (fig. 4). 225 Roman Campagna shows a close-up of the Aqua
Claudia now without the Tor Fiscale, focusing just on the ruined aqueduct. As it is a view taken nearer to the aqueduct, the fragmented monument is enlarged in comparison. Cole obviously changed the time of day. Whereas the late afternoon sunlight hits the surface of the broken aqueduct from the right side of the picture in
Aqueduct near Rome (fig. 3), in Roman Campagna the morning sunshine approaches from the opposite direction. Here, a shepherd boy is also seen herding his flock near the gap formed by the collapsed aqueduct; one of his goats, separated from the rest, is standing alone above a rock at the far right, again facing the sun, which, this time,
224 Oil on paper on canvas, 20.64 × 31.12 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, inv. 1988.31. 225 Thomas Cole, Roman Campagna, oil on canvas, 82.6 × 122 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Bequest of Clara Hinton Gould, inv. 1948.189. 45
appears from the other direction. Once again, the large Alban Hills lie in the background, dividing the land below and the skies above.
With his two ‘portraits’ of the Aqua Claudia in Saint Louis and in Hartford
(figs. 3, 4), Cole considerably influenced later views of the monument. This becomes evident when comparing Camille Corot’s The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian
Aqueduct, probably of 1826 (fig. 15), with a similar view by George Inness (fig. 16), executed in 1858, certainly under the impression of Roman Campagna (fig. 4).226
Cole’s protagonist is the huge Roman monument, an aspect which is clearly echoed by Inness.
226 Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct, probably 1826, oil on paper, laid on canvas, 22.8 × 34 cm, National Gallery, London, inv. NG3285; George Inness, Roman Campagna, 1858, oil on canvas, 50.8 × 76.2 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, inv. 1947.08. 46
7. The Artist in Arcadia: Thomas Cole in Sicily
On his second journey to Italy in 1841–42, Thomas Cole together with his English friend and colleague, Samuel J. Ainsley, also undertook a trip of around six weeks to the South of Italy and the island of Sicily. As mentioned before, they travelled to
Segesta after a short stop in Palermo, where Cole worked on sketches of the landscape including the temple (22nd and 23rd of April, 1842).227 One of the sketches, now in
Detroit,228 which later on served as a model for the painting The Vale and Temple of
Segesta, Sicily (New-York Historical Society), bears the date April 22nd, 1842
(figs. 17, 18).229
7.1. The Discovery of Sicily as Travel Destination
As Edward Chaney has shown, travelling to Sicily started quite early.230 There were already travelers in the 16th century, who wrote about their experiences. One of the first English travelers to had done so as a pioneering Grand Tourist was Sir Thomas
Hoby (1530–66), scholar and translator. 231 He wrote about his journey to Sicily beginning in February of 1550 in his autobiographical diary, Booke of the Travaile and Lief of Me Thomas Hoby, which was not published until 1902.232 However, in
Hoby’s time, going on a trip to Sicily was not usual for foreigners such as himself.233
227 Cole, 1844, pp. 236–244. See Parry, 1988, p. 270, without, however, giving the sources. 228 The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, pen and brown ink and brown wash over graphite pencil on off-white wove paper, 26.0 × 36.5 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.421.A. 229 The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, oil on canvas, 112.4 × 167.6 cm, New-York Historical Society, New York, inv. 1858.62. 230 Edward Chaney, The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance, London; Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1998, pp. 6–10. 231 Edward Chaney, “The Grand Tour and the Evolution of the Travel Book,” in: Andrew Wilton and Ilaria Bignamini (eds.), Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century, London: Tate Gallery, 1996, pp. 95–97, here p. 95. 232 Chaney, 1998, p. 6. 233 Margaret M. Miles, Art as Plunder: The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 291. 47
Only the more courageous and idiosyncratic would accept the challenge to take the trip down south. 234 Hoby embarked on a journey to the island out of curiosity, claiming that the reason for going there was just to “have a sight of the countrey” and also to absent himself “for while owt of Englishemenne’s companie for the tung’s sake.”235 Hoby’s vivid descriptions prove his extraordinary curiosity in the island’s antique history, monuments and natural sites, unusual at the time. Naples was the southernmost destination for the majority of Grand Tourists. 236 Sicily, considered dangerous and disorderly with its natural disasters and banditti, was not on the conventional itinerary.237 Still, occasional travelers went there for exploration. It was not until the 18th century that Sicily became a more common extension of the Grand
Tour.238 During this period, tourists attracted to antiquity, especially Greek culture, journeyed to Sicily for its classical remains. George Berkeley (1685–1753), a pioneer in appreciating Greek Doric architecture in Sicily, was one of such tourists.239 John
Breval (1680–1738) also had interests in the antique ruins of Sicily; the second set of his 1738 work, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, includes an extensive account of
Sicilian antiquities and—what is even more important in the context of the research on Thomas Cole—the first engravings of them ever published.240 Besides the appeal of man-made monuments, Nature itself was also an attraction for travelers to Sicily.
Various visitors were motivated by the active Sicilian volcano, Mount Etna, a landform unknown in Britain.241 While some took interest in climbing Etna, others
234 Chaney, 1998, p. 6. 235 Ibid. 236 Sharon Ouditt, Impressions of Southern Italy: British Travel Writing from Henry Swinburne to Norman Douglas, New York [et al.], Routledge, 2013, p. 1. 237 Gaetana Marrone, “A Cinematic Grand Tour of Sicily: Irony, Memory and Metamorphic Desire from Goethe to Tornatore,” in: California Italian Studies 1, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–12, here p. 2. 238 Miles, 2008, p. 291. 239 Chaney, 1998, pp. 22–25. 240 Ibid., p. 26. 241 Jeremy Black, Italy and the Grand Tour, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003, p. 61. 48
investigated the geological formation of it.242 In the mid-16th century, it was Thomas
Hoby and, two centuries afterwards, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who were ready to climb the mountain, but surrendered to the ascent upon the advice of the locals.243
Of all 18th-century travelogs, the most popular is Patrick Brydone’s (1736–1818)
Tour through Sicily and Malta.244 This 1773 publication, along with Johann Hermann von Riedesel’s (1740–1785) Reise durch Sicilien und Großgriechenland of 1771, began the trend for touring Sicily.245 More interest in southern Italy at this time led to a limited amount of guidebooks, with Henry Swinburne’s (1743–1803) Travels in the
Two Sicilies, published in 1783–85, being the most important.246 Goethe’s Italian
Journey (1786–88), published between 1813 and 1817, included the best description of Sicily up to then. It is improbable that Thomas Cole had taken this text into account, as it first appeared in English as late as in 1883.247 There are, however, parallels in the experience of the country, which are to be highlighted.
By Cole’s time, Sicily had already become “an almost routine part” of the classic
Tour.248 As a traveler, he could, therefore, have drawn on a wide selection of 18th- century publications on Sicily.
7.2. The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching—Landscape and Self-Portrait
The painting titled The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (Boston) was
242 Ibid. 243 Chaney, 1998, pp. 8–9. Goethe, 1962, p. 284 (May 4th, 1787). 244 Chaney, 1998, p. 32. 245 Pierre Chessex, “Grand Tour,” in: Michel Delon (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, London and New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 622–625, here p. 625. 246 Black, 2003, p. 64. 247 A.J.W. Morrison and Charles Nisbet (eds.), Goethe’s Travels in Italy, London: George Bell, 1883; see Peter France (ed.), The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 316. 248 Chaney, 1998, p. 37. 49
probably executed in 1842–43.249 In July, 1843, Cole mentioned a painting titled
“Temple of Segeste [sic]” he had finished among others.250 It is likely that he meant the work now in Boston (fig. 1). This painting is rather exceptional as the artist depicted himself in the Sicilian landscape drawing the Segesta Temple.
Settled on a hill covered with grass in the middle ground, the sunlit Greek temple is the first to catch the viewer’s eye. From the spectator’s slightly elevated viewpoint, only two sides of the roofless temple can be seen; one, the frontal with six Doric columns standing in a line meeting the sunlight, the other, the right with a row of fourteen more columns in the shade.
Across the elevated land holding the Doric temple, a foreground containing a pair of figures comes to sight. Halfway towards the center foreground, the artist himself is seated on a rock with crossed legs, in the moment of producing a drawing of the temple before him (fig. 19). His hat is placed just aside him at his foot. Below the rock with the drawing artist, a barefooted guide dressed in bright colors rests with a rifle on the back of his mule. This is certainly Luigi, the muleteer, mentioned in the sources.251
Not too far away from the pair, one of the artist’s belongings, a green sketchbook with red border, lay on the rock near the center of the foreground. The artist’s sketchbook, packed with drawings (fig. 20), is left right-side up, allowing the letters
“T Cole” to face the audience, a mark deliberately made declaring ownership and authorship to both the sketchbook and the entire painting.
A huge mound appears at the right behind the middle-ground hill, towering the temple and undefined roofed buildings underneath it. Further beyond the high grounds, a vast field unfolds in the distant, spreading itself until it reaches a body of
249 Oil on canvas, 49.85 × 76.52 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. 47.1198. 250 Noble, 1856, p. 349. 251 Parry, 1988, p. 270. 50
water at one end. Remote mountains in the background margin the land before it, breaking the connection between earth and sky. As the sunlight comes from the left side of the picture, shadows are cast in the opposite direction indicated by darker tones. The painting is rich in colors of yellow, green and brown.
Cole, here, once again demonstrates his way of composition by using his typical formula of a narrow foreground strip, a middle ground with an overwhelming structure, and a far off background to compose this painting.
7.3. The Painter Before the Ruin
With representing himself drawing before the antique monument, Cole invites the viewer to witness the on-site working process. He did not, however, give a snapshot of the situation. This is already indicated by the carefully composed still-life of the sketchbook in the foreground. Representing himself before and inside the scenery at the same time, the painter expresses his relationship to the landscape and the ruined monument in front of him. The small scale of the figures emphasizes the vastness of the imposing hilly landscape. The aspect of the human being in a seemingly endless landscape would be further enhanced in The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, 1844,
(New York; fig. 17), a painting he executed one year later.
With such a self-portrait he refers to an established tradition, which can be traced back to the 16th century. In 1553, some twenty years after his trip to Italy, Dutch painter Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) appears twice in a painting showing the Roman Colosseum (Fitzwilliam Museum) (fig. 21).252 The painter depicts himself
252 Self-portrait with the Colosseum, oil on canvas, 42.2 × 54 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The artist’s name and date of completion are on a label: “Martyn Van hemsker / Ao AEtatis sua. LV / 1553.” Heemskerck had stayed in Rome between the summer of 1532 and winter of 1536/37; Margaret Aston, The King's Bedpost: Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait, Cambridge: CUP Archive, 1995, p. 54. 51
at the left side of the picture plane in front of a veduta of the antique amphitheater, and more precisely in front of the most of the ruinous side, where the outer shell of the wall is lacking. In this representation the painter himself has again portrayed himself while drawing the illustrious antique ruin. A cartiglio with the caption including Heemskerck’s name and the date of completion is attached to the painting, thus revealing that the artist is not standing in front of the Colosseum, but in front of a painting showing the Roman monument.
Another painter, Richard Wilson (1714–1782), had painted himself working in front of a scenery with ruins. Cole became familiar with Wilson’s work through engravings.253 Wilson, the Welsh-born artist known as the “father of British landscape painting,”254 created a painting in 1752 showing himself in the moment of capturing the sight before him on canvas set upon an easel (National Gallery of Ireland) (fig.
22).255 Across the foreground seated artist, the above town of Tivoli and the lower ruins of the Villa of Maecenas, or rather the Temple of Hercules the Victor, appear beyond the Cascatelle Grandi.256 Rome is in the distance, where the dome of Saint
Peter’s is just visible on the horizon.257 Another version of this work, also done in
1752, is preserved at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London (fig. 23).258 The two works resemble each other closely with the exclusion of the vegetated near foreground, the right-side hill and the figure standing next to the artist in the former painting as the only exception. The companion piece of the painting in Dublin, made
253 Tim Barringer, “Thomas Cole’s Atlantic Crossings,” in: Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser and Tim Barringer, Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, pp. 19–61, here p. 29. 254 Robin Simon, “Richard Wilson, Rome, and the Transformation of European Art,” in: Martin Postle and Robin Simon (eds.), Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2014, pp. 1–33, here p. 1. 255 Tivoli, the Cascatelle Grande and the Villa of Maecenas, oil on canvas, 49.3 × 64 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.746. 256 Martin Postle and Robin Simon (eds.), Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2014, p. 247. 257 Ibid. 258 View of Tivoli: the Cascatelle and the ‘Villa of Maecenas’, oil on canvas, 73.3 × 97.2 cm, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, inv. DPG171. 52
in the same year, also presents the artist before a landscape with ruins (National
Gallery of Ireland) (fig. 24).259 This time, the foreground artist is, not in the middle of producing a picture, but carrying away his easel, indicating the painter’s work is done for the day. The scene he was depicting includes the famous ruin, Temple of the
Tiburtine Sibyl, with a neighboring church.260 The Roman Campagna is seen further away from the buildings. 261 It could be deduced that Cole, already with good knowledge of works by Wilson, learned from Wilson the arrangement of representing himself working on his artwork in the foreground right in front of a view with ruins, and applied this idea to his own work. The similarity of the reduced scale of figures, thus putting emphasis on the landscape setting, is evident, showing that Cole was likely artistically influenced by Wilson.
A third painter, who portrayed himself facing a ruined structure, is Frenchman
Hubert Robert (1733–1808), nicknamed ‘Robert of the Ruins’ by the philosopher
Denis Diderot (1713–84). Robert made a self-portrait in front of a structure modeled after Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Colonnades of Saint Peter’s in Rome (The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York) (fig. 25). 262 As the decaying colonnade stretches horizontally below the painter, who holds a drawing board against his bent knee,
Robert turns his head to his right, away from both the ruin and his sketch work, placing attention on the maiden standing behind him. The female reaches out her right arm towards the distant colonnade, as if instructing the artist how to compose his painting.
All three artists share with Cole the self-representation before a monument in a
259 The Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna, oil on canvas, 50 × 66 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.747. 260 Postle, 2014, p. 247. 261 Ibid. 262 A Colonnade in Ruins, oil on canvas, 58.4 × 155.3 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 17.190.32. This painting, which was originally intended to decorate the wall over a door, has a counterpart, Arches in Ruins (inv. 17.190.31), in the same museum. 53
state of decay. Since the 16th century, ruins were considered as being worthy of representation, as they were testimonies of a glorious past.
7.4. The Views of Mount Etna from Taormina (1843)
Due to its impressive height of more than 3,300 meters above sea level, which makes it the highest volcano in Europe, and the fact that it is one of the last active volcanos in the area, Mount Etna—or Mongibello, as locals call it—has never ceased to fascinate people since antiquity. Men of letters and artists admired in particular its imposing conical form and the wild scenery of the surrounding landscape. As a consequence, the Etna was a motif of painters and literati already long before Thomas
Cole had a closer look at it toward the mid-19th century.263
As already mentioned, Hoby and Goethe had to give up their plans to ascend the
Etna. One of Cole’s proudest achievements on his second trip to Italy was reaching its summit in time for sunrise on the morning of May 10th in 1842.264 Accompanied by his friend Samuel Ainsley, Cole ascended the volcano by night and arrived at its top right in time to witness the rising sun.265 After climbing down the volcano, the two men traveled to Taormina, where Cole made a few pencil and oil sketches of the ruins of the Graeco-Roman theater with Mount Etna in the background on May 16th
(figs. 26).266
These sketches and the subsequent oil paintings prove how much Cole was captivated by the spectacular site. The theater of Taormina forms a stupendous
263 As early as in 1832, Cole had already attached great interest to another active volcano in Italy, the Vesuvius near Naples. At the time, he made a few sketches from the mountain’s outline and the bay. First View of Vesuvius, graphite pencil on off-white wove paper, 22.2 × 31.4 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.565.71. Vesuvius, graphite pencil on off-white wove paper, 22.2 × 31.4 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.565.72. 264 Cole, 1844, p. 110; Stebbins, 1992, p. 262. 265 Cole, 1844, p. 112; Parry, 1988, p. 270. 266 Parry, 1988, p. 271. 54
architectural framework for the breathtaking view of the volcano in the background.
No one described this scenery more perfectly than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
“Art has assisted Nature to build this semicircle which held the amphitheatre audience. […] The proscenium was built in a diagonal at the foot of the tiered half-circle, stretching from cliff to cliff to complete a stupendous work of Art and Nature. If one sits where the topmost spectators sat, one has to admit that no audience in any other theatre ever beheld such a view.”267
The ideal interaction of Art and Nature depicted here so vividly by the German writer is Cole’s theme, too. On a drawing showing the panoramic view of the theater with
Mount Etna in the background, Cole notes his enthusiastic statement:
“What a magnificent site! Aetna with its eternal snows towering in the heavens—the ranges of nearer mountains—the deep romantic valley—the bay of Naxos... I have never seen anything like it. The views from Taormina certainly excel anything I have ever seen.”268
The right-hand side of Cole’s doubled-paged sketchbook in Detroit (Accession
Number 39.406) records this drawing of the panoramic view of Mount Etna from
Taormina at an elevated viewpoint (fig. 26).269 The drawing would be the one on which Cole’s finished painting, Mount Etna from Taormina, was based. The atmosphere expressed in the above-quoted words is reverberated in his description of
Mount Etna, enclosed in an article Cole published in 1844 under the title Sicilian
Scenery and Antiquities.270
Following his return to New York, Thomas Cole worked from his detailed
267 Goethe, 1962, p. 286. 268 Here quoted after Jones, in: The Lure of Italy, 1992, p. 262. 269 Mount Etna from Taormina, Sicily, graphite pencil on beige wove paper, 29.4 × 41.3 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.406. There is another drawing of a panoramic view of Mount Etna and the town of Taormina before it by Cole on a double-paged sketchbook in Birmingham. In this drawing, Cole depicts the town of Taormina before Mount Etna without the Taormina theater. The focus of the foreground is the town of Taormina, rendered in detailed manner. Information on the Birmingham drawing is listed as follows: graphite, wash, black ink, and possibly blue watercolor on laid paper, 50.8 × 179.1 cm, Birmingham Museum of Art, inv. 1980.351. 270 Thomas Cole, “Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities,” in: The Knickerbocker, New-York Monthly Magazine 23, no. 2, February, 1844, pp. 103-113; no. 3, March, 1844, pp. 236–244, here no. 2, pp. 110–113. See also appendix no. 3. 55
sketches created at the site, and the drawing in particular, to produce his large-scale
Mount Etna from Taormina (1843).271 Cole painted the piece with incredible speed, completing the near two-by-three-meter painting in a short period of merely five days.272 He then exhibited the work at his one-man show at the National Academy of
Design in December of 1843.273 Afterwards, the painting was purchased by the newly established Wadsworth Atheneum and sent to that new gallery in Hartford once Cole’s exhibition closed.274
In his painting Mount Etna from Taormina of 1843 (fig. 27), Cole presents to his audience a scene of the ruined Graeco-Roman theater located before the bay by the
Mediterranean under the snow-covered Mount Etna.275 Facing the proscenium of the
Taormina theater, the spectator is able to see not only remnants of the collapsed scaenae frons, consisting of an arched brick wall and a file of both whole and broken marble columns, beyond this horizontal barrier, rolling hills, a small contemporary town and the coastline define the middle ground, whereas the volcano emerges far off in the distance.
Before the ruins of the theater, the remains of a giant column are arranged in the left corner, while another one, somewhat smaller in size, has fallen on its side near the center foreground. In front of the fallen column piece, a hooded figure in black and red, probably a rural Sicilian of Cole’s time, passes by. Tiny goats can be seen frolicking among the rubble at the large opening in the ruined theater. A small standing figure, presumably a shepherd, watches his flock from a distance under an arch on the right side of the theater stage. Comparison with photographs of the theater
271 Parry, 1988, pp. 291–292. Michael J. Lewis, “American Sublime,” in: The New Criterion, September, 2002, pp. 27–33, here pp. 28–30. 272 Parry, 1988, p. 292. 273 Ibid., pp. 292–294. 274 Ibid., pp. 295–296. 275 On the complex chronology of the theater at Taormina see Frank Sear, “The Theatre at Taormina — A New Chronology,” in: Papers of the British School at Rome 64, 1996, pp. 41–79. 56
taken by Giovanni Crupi (1859–1925; fig. 28) shows that the giant column was Cole’s own invention (fig. 27). Apart from the fact that it cannot be found in the photographs, it did not make sense in this architectural context.276 Cole obviously added it for making the ruins appear more colossal and, at the same time, the staffage figure look tinier. Furthermore, Cole applies such devices of a culture’s past eminence and grandeur as signs of transience.
Backlit by the morning sun, the surviving rear wall of the scaena, shattered from the center into two fragments, is highlighted against the illuminated middle ground and background. The arches on both of the two fragmented structures pierce each halfway through; the pair of arches, along with the gap in the center, form three
‘windows’ framing views of the scenery in the middle ground.
The middle ground is shaped by mostly land and a narrow part of the sea on the left. Divided unevenly by the winding coastline, lush green hills occupy the right picture plane, as the blue water of the Mediterranean Sea fills up the left. Part of the village of Taormina crowns a hill on the right of the picture, flaunting its red roofs under the sun.
Mount Etna, the massive snow-capped volcano, rises in the background, looming over the area. Released from the tip of the mountain, a curl of smoke is ascending into the air, gaining thickness in the sky up above.
An oil sketch for this painting was executed in the previous year, 1842 (fig. 29).
This study is a further example of Cole’s en plein air sketching process. Here he used thick, wet brushstrokes to indicate the basic composition as well as the colors and effects of light on the scene. Traces of these heavy strokes replete the study’s surface
276 Giovanni Crupi, “Greek theatre – Taormina.” Online auction catalog # 48; see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crupi,_Giovanni_(1849-1925)_-_n._0048_-_Teatro_Greco_- _Taormina.jpg. Crupi was an Italian photographer, mostly active in Sicily in the later 19th century; see http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/2566/giovanni-crupi-italian-active-sicily-italy-1860s-1890s/ (retrieved November 16th, 2017). 57
as patches of layered impasto cover the main body of the composition. In contrast,
Mount Etna from Taormina was painted quickly in thin strokes resulting in scumbled layers of paint. Giving merely a general idea of the final production, the forms in the sketch work are much reduced; for instance, the column shafts of the foreground theater stage are represented with single extended brushstrokes. As the study can be read as a preliminary sketch of the more refined final piece, it is comparable for example to the 1832 oil sketches of the Aqua Claudia in the Campagna di Roma
(figs. 13, 14).
While the final painting and its preliminary oil sketch share a likeness in composition, the two works depict the same site at a slightly different angle. In the
1843 painting at Hartford (fig. 27), the entire scenery is rendered from a higher standpoint further back, which gives an effect that reduces the height of the ruined theater walls and encompasses more of the structure at both ends; by comparison, the oil sketch The Ruins at Taormina (fig. 29) displays a narrower view, which makes the walls seem much taller and the openings bigger, taking up more than half the height of the whole picture. The viewpoint difference also affects the appearance of the hills in the middle ground, which seem to be steeper and massier in the oil study than in the final picture.
In the oil sketch, Cole concentrated on the general site, the theater and its topographical circumstances, while staffage figures and details of the ruins were added later in the final painting. The way Mount Etna is portrayed was modified in the final painting. In the study, a stirless volcano is partly concealed behind two separate layers of clouds. In the final painting, white snow girdles the upper half of a smoke-puffing volcano. The surface of the volcano in the painting is uneven and rocky, exhibiting more texture, while the sketched volcano is rendered quite flat and plain. Most probably, the oil sketch renders the meteorological conditions of the 58
moment, when the work was executed. In the final painting, however, Cole chose a more serene, idealized atmosphere.
Cole certainly depended on his oil sketch to complete the final painting, Mount
Etna from Taormina of 1843 (fig. 27). The sketch functioned as an aide-mémoire for his later use, recording essential information on form, color, tone and lighting in nature observed by the artist. Cole first used light pencil lines to begin the sketch, determining the levels of cloudage while outlining the volcano.277 As the oil sketch’s wet-on-wet surface reveals, Cole depicted the forms with speed, adding small amounts of intensification later when the surface layer had dried.278 In order to make the oil sketch on site, Cole had with him a handy device—a sketch box. Eleanor Jones
Harvey introduces Cole’s portable sketch box in her exhibition catalog The Painted
Sketch. This useful container was invented to keep the artist’s paints, brushes, palette and other sketching tools within for traveling.279 It would be likely that Cole brought his sketch box outdoors with him to work on his plein-air study, rapidly putting down the Sicilian scenery he saw in paint; then after returning to New York, the artist developed his large-scale canvas in the studio from his sketch work, with slight arrangements and additional figural details. Resulting from the oil sketch, the final production shares the same effects of recorded natural conditions as the sketch work, a preparatory study that allowed Cole to create a finished painting of heightened verisimilitude.
Bearing much in common, Cole’s choice of perspective for the final version of
Mount Etna from Taormina was probably influenced by View of Aetna from the
Theatre at Taormina, an engraving by Robert Wallis (1794–1878) after a drawing by
277 Harvey, 1998, p. 122. 278 Ibid. 279 Ibid., p. 120. 59
Peter DeWint (1784–1849) of 1822 (fig. 30).280 This engraved work was published in
DeWint’s 1823 book, Sicilian Scenery.281 Containing a series of engraved depictions of Sicilian landscape and architectural monuments accompanied by descriptions,
DeWint’s work was probably one of Cole’s references for planning his European itinerary, exposing the American artist to a pictorial precedent of the setting. It is also significant that, some ten years later, Cole published his own description of Sicily nearly under the same title, Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities.282
Similar in arrangement, Cole’s painting and DeWint’s engraving show the classical panoramic view from Taormina with Mount Etna in the background. In both works, the foreground view is dominated by the ruinous theater stage with its large central gap and two lateral arches. The remaining parts of the theater are given in a rather similar way in the two works, except for some small, but significant differences. The divided scaenae frons is rendered more symmetrically from Cole’s point of view, with both sides flanking the midway gap being balanced and even, while the theater wall has a higher left side in DeWint’s engraving. DeWint’s ruined theater accommodates slenderer arches and no traces of any columns compared with
Cole’s image. As for details in the foreground, a goat and two groups of hatted figures appear from behind a vegetated foreground strip in DeWint’s picture, a design Cole replaced with his large broken columns and hooded Sicilian, which can be taken as a further indicator that the latter invented this motif.
Through the broken area and doorways in the theater’s scaenae frons, the audience’s vision is guided to the coastal scene behind the ruins in both views. Almost identical, the middle ground sections in Cole’s and DeWint’s work are composed of
280 Parry, 1988, p. 292. 281 Peter DeWint, Sicilian Scenery from Drawings by P. DeWint. The Original Sketches by Major Light, London: Rodwell & Martin, 1823. 282 Cole, 1844, pp. 103–113. See appendix no. 3. 60
the left-side Mediterranean, the in-between crooked coastline, and the right-side hilly region topped by the village of Taormina. Cole’s middle ground is vaster in depth, whereas DeWint’s middle ground is broader in width.
In both works, Mount Etna stands majestically out against the background with its base stretching towards the sea and its peak soaring above the clouds in the air, while its main body takes up most of the upper-right picture plane. The difference of the background between the two works lies in the details. The shape of Mount Etna in
Cole’s painting is rather different from that in DeWint’s engraving, with the former being conical. Cole’s version of Mount Etna has a broad base which narrows gradually until reaching its uppermost peak, creating a dominant projection at the top section of the volcano, where that of DeWint’s is much flattened. The slantier, more acute form of Cole’s design brings out the conical shape of Mount Etna, a shape subtly suggesting upward movement, making the volcano seem to be rising from the horizon and soaring to the heaven above all others, allowing it to appear to be grand and magnificent.
The discrepancy between Cole’s painting and DeWint’s engraving must be explained. When comparing 19th-century representations of this view, the great differences in the volcano’s outline are surprising. In a picture executed by the
German painter Carl Anton Rottmann (1797–1850; fig. 31) in 1829/30, for example, the mountain has a flatter, more rounded silhouette, much similar to the form DeWint shows in the engraving, but very different from Cole’s view.283 Due to a series of eruptions, the volcano constantly changed its outline over time. Strangely enough, its form can vary in works of art of the same period. This fact indicates that an artist could decide what form he wanted to give to the mountain, either working after
283 Carl Anton Rottmann, Taormina with Mount Etna, probably 1829/30, oil on canvas, 48 × 72.9 cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, inv. WAF 845. The painting was executed after the painter’s trip to Italy in 1826/27; https://www.pinakothek.de/en/node/1794 (retrieved May 15th, 2018). 61
nature, or following earlier representations, or freely inventing a form.
Cole’s volcano perhaps owes its powerful shape to an engraving, A View of
Mount Aetna from Taormina, in Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and
Other Volcanos, a book of 1772 by Sir William Hamilton possibly seen by Cole.284
The way Cole rendered Mount Etna was probably meant to underline its sublimity and allude to its destructive power. “Sublime art thou O Mount!,” he exclaims in the poem. 285 There are further basic differences in rendering the scenery: DeWint’s volcano is inactive, while Cole’s is in the moment of emitting smoke. In addition, the background skies in the two works are of different quality: Cole’s sky is relatively clear, as DeWint’s sky is cloudy. It is as if Cole wanted to stress the fact that Mount
Etna was active and full of energy through contrasting the curl of volcanic smoke with his clear sky, making the smoke seem more prominent and eye-catching, thus denoting the volcano’s sublimity. The pureness of Cole’s sky is also hinting at his idea of the sublime. Cole sees the pure blue sky as the highest sublime, for in his own words he once wrote: “In the pure blue sky is the highest sublime. There is the illimitable […]. There we look into the uncurtained, solemn serene—into the eternal, the infinite—toward the throne of the Almighty.” 286 With pathetic rhetoric, Cole interprets here the serene sky in terms of religious significance. The sky’s sublime quality lies in its referring to the infinity of eternal life.
Besides small adjustments made in the details which differ, Cole’s painting and
DeWint’s engraving are basically look-alikes. Both Cole and DeWint chose to present the theater’s gap at the center foreground, an arrangement leading to the scenery behind. In addition, both depictions show the site at the same time of day, letting the sunlight come from the left side. Judging from the layout closeness of the two works
284 Parry, 1988, p. 292. 285 Cole, 1842, 5, 43. See appendix no. 2. 286 Thomas Cole (September 4th, 1847), quoted here after Noble, 1856, p. 376. 62
and considering the fact that Cole finished his picture in such a short time, it is imaginable that Cole referred to DeWint’s engraving, or at least he had seen the engraved image beforehand.
Cole created a reduced replica of his 1843 painting, also titled Mount Etna from
Taormina, in the following year.287 According to Parry, the only source on this replica of Cole’s at present, Mount Etna from Taormina of 1844 was originally titled View of
Mount Etna from the ruins of the Theatre of Taormina—from the original sketch taken on the spot by the Artist (fig. 32); it appeared at the third exhibition of the Boston
Artists’ Association at Harding’s Gallery, loaned by a man named D. Sears.288 This replica closely resembles the painting sharing its title, only with some minor differences. The likeness of the two lies in the overall composition with the foreground ruin, the middle ground hilly terrain by the sea, and the background volcano set against the sky.
While the two works are for the most part quite similar in their display of the damaged Taormina theater, certain details reveal slight differences. In the replica, the fragment of the vertical column has a smooth top surface and rounded edges; in the original painting, the top side of the broken upright column is rough and bumpy. The scale of the fallen column in the replica is increased than that in the original, and it is nearer in size to the one erected on the same plane.
In the later version, the painter repeated quite exactly the arrangement of the middle ground and background. The exception would be that the hills and volcano in the replica are more raised, both appearing taller and steeper. Instead of hanging in the background sky, the smoke of Mount Etna soon dissipates in the air on the replica’s picture plane. Clouds, lit up by sunlight from below, cluster beside the volcano at the
287 Mount Etna from Taormina, 1844, oil on canvas, 81.92 × 121.92 cm, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut. Anonymous gift, inv. 1943.466. 288 Parry, 1988, p. 298. 63
upper-left area in the replica where the sky remains clear in the earlier painting.
Measuring 81.92 by 121.92 centimeters, the replica is much smaller in size compared with the painting of near 200 by 300 centimeters. Though shrunken dimensionally, the later replica was not deprived of content. Cole kept certain motifs from his 1843 original in the later work, which include the hooded passer-by, giant columns, goats, light on the scaenae frons, a village upon a hill, sailboats in the waters, and a plume of volcanic smoke. Evidently, what Cole was doing was simply making a smaller version of his large-scale canvas, perhaps for a client who saw the original and commissioned a similar one.
7.5. Poetry and Painting—Thomas Cole’s Description of Climbing Mount Etna
Besides his pictorial renderings of the volcano, Cole’s own writings also reveal his view towards Mount Etna, offering a glimpse of how closely he observed the mountain. An analysis of the texts can help to better understand his paintings. In both the poem “Mt. Etna,” which he composed in 1842, and the 1844 essay Sicilian
Scenery and Antiquities, Cole simultaneously evokes the scenery of the mountain perceived from a distance and the atmosphere during the ascent. Poem and essay share a descriptive style giving a detailed rendition of the atmosphere which appeals to all the senses.289 In the essay, Cole describes Mount Etna as “an enthroned spirit” while stressing its massiveness and great height through the fact that the volcanic body could be seen from far away.290 He further commented that “when viewed from a distance, Mount Ætna is an object to make a deep impression on the mind.”291
289 For Cole’s poetry, see the introduction by Marshall B. Tymn in his edition of Thomas Cole’s Poetry, York, Pennsylvania: Liberty Cap Books, 1972, pp. 15–25. Tymn calls the poems “approximate casual diary entries.” Ibid., p. 23. 290 Cole, 1844, p. 103; the whole description of Mount Etna is on pp. 103, 109–113. See appendix no. 3. 291 Ibid., p. 110. 64
In his poem of May in 1842 on Mount Etna and, again, in his Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities essay, Cole used the word ‘sublime’ as he exalted the volcano, expressing his deep veneration for the natural landform.292 Cole’s distinct description of Mount Etna, stressing its sublimity, is echoed in his way of portraying the great mountain on canvas as mentioned before. Another shared aspect of the literary and pictorial renderings of Mount Etna would be Cole’s emphasis on the volcano’s liveliness. In his written works, Cole addresses Mount Etna as a person. Possessing human characteristics, the volcano seems to have life. The humanized volcano
“breathes out smoke,” a feature that is also pictured in his painting, displaying the energy and vitality of mighty Etna. As in his pictorial representations of Mount Etna from Taormina (figs. 27, 32), Cole emphasizes the huge, awe-inspiring mass of the volcano, “a mountain whose base is as broad as the whole range of the Catskills, as seen from Catskill village, rising to nearly three times their height.”293 The volcano’s hugeness and ferocity are contributing to its sublime nature. With the term ‘sublime,’
Cole harked back to Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of the
Sublime and Beautiful, first published in 1757.294 Burke questioned the exclusive validity of beauty as aesthetic category and contrasted it with the idea of the
‘sublime,’ which according to him was, “productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.” 295 In both media, writing and painting, Cole’s admiration for the awe-inspiring power of the volcano is clearly discernible. In the essay, he insisted on the mountain’s destructive forces. On the way up to the summit, the only interesting aspect he could relate was “the hamlets through which we passed
292 Ibid. Thomas Cole, “Mt. Etna,” in: Marshall Tymn, ed., Thomas Cole’s Poetry, York, Pennsylvania: Liberty Cap Books, 1972, p. 135. See appendix nos. 2, 3. 293 Cole, 1844, p. 110. See appendix no. 3. 294 Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of the Sublime and Beautiful, London: Dodsley, 1757. 295 Burke, 1757, part I, section VII. 65
bore fearful evidences of the effects of earthquake.”296 And the description of the scenery, he discovered in the upper regions is exemplary for his fascination of the site’s sublime quality: “Broken in cooling into masses of rough but sharp fracture, its aspect is horrid and forbidding, and it is exceedingly difficult to walk over.”297 For the same reason, Nature’s violent aspects, he admired American landscapes.298 On the other hand, Cole would depict the subtle beauty of the landscape surrounding Mount
Etna underscoring the Arcadian quality of the place. The marked contrast of the beautiful and the sublime is, thus, evident in his words and in his paintings.
296 Cole, 1844, p. 110. See appendix no. 3. 297 Ibid., p. 111. 298 Charles L. Sanford, “The Concept of the Sublime in the Works of Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant,” in: American Literature 28, no. 4, 1957, pp. 434–448, here pp. 437–438. 66
8. Conclusion
In the context of Thomas Cole’s travels to Europe in the early 1830s and 1840s, the trips to Italy occupy a special place. There, he not only went to the countryside to gather motifs for his paintings, but he also studied the old masters in the museums and visited places for their historical dimension. With his choice of destinations—he visited Florence, Rome, Naples, Sicily and many localities of the countryside—Cole followed in the footsteps of the Grand Tourers, who had undertaken such travels to the south during the 18th century. The analyses of the paintings and the corresponding preliminary sketches cast a light on the modes of early plein-air painting the artist practiced in Italy. Cole tried to catch the atmosphere of the sceneries in all facets by sketching with pencil and oil, but also by taking precise notes about the topographical conditions, colors and, not least, the diverse historical and mythological layers of the places. On his return to America, he produced elaborated canvases, some of which reveal an astonishing preciseness with regard to topographical truth. It could be shown, however, that this was not his first concern. Cole was ready to make amendments in order to enhance the sceneries’ strong atmosphere.
The experiences he made in Italy, with the arts on the one hand and the field trips to the countryside on the other, can be considered as complimentary to his encountering the American scenery. Evidently, he was attracted by landscapes which corresponded to his notion of the beautiful and sublime. Cole had borrowed this dual concept of aesthetic qualities from English Romanticism. It has been demonstrated that his paintings comprise both aspects: the beauty of the pastoral scenery and the roughness of the background mountains. With a marked contrast of scale between the miniaturized figures in the paintings and the landscape elements—mountains and trees, in particular—Cole would underline the sublime quality of the Italian
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countryside. However, the same feature is manifest in his American landscapes and cycles. The pastoral mode of his topographical landscapes had been clearly inspired by 17th-century artists and by Claude Lorrain in the first place. The comparison between works of both painters revealed Claude’s influence on Cole’s works, and especially some of the earlier landscapes, executed after his first journey.
The sublime quality of the landscape was found in mighty mountain ranges and the Greek and Roman ruins that are scattered in the countryside. His admiration for
Mount Etna, in particular, denotes Cole’s predilection for the appealing roughness of certain landscapes and the destructive power of Nature. Cole, moreover, deduced the sublime quality from a transcendent dimension he perceived in Nature. In all these aspects, he shows his commitment to Romanticism.
It is telling that a two-part essay published in 1844 after his return from the second trip is titled Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities. Not only in this piece of literature and other writings, but also in his paintings, the scenery of the ideal landscape and the country’s history are two constant aspects. In Cole’s paintings, the ruined ancient monuments not only represent the decay of a high culture but also serve as symbols of elapsing time, witnessing the transience of all beings. Though the ancient ruins have withstood the test of time and remain standing for the present to witness, Cole reminds us with his emphasis on the depiction of the collapsing state and extensive vegetation of the age-old structures that the power of Nature is, inevitably, above all.
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the 1830s to the 1910s, Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2016 Carr, Gerald L., “Frederic Edwin Church and Italy,” in: Irma B. Jaffe, The Italian Presence in American Art 1860–1920, New York: Fordham University Press; Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1989, pp. 23–42 Chaney, Edward, The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance, London; Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1998 —, “The Grand Tour and the Evolution of the Travel Book,” in: Andrew Wilton and Ilaria Bignamini (eds.), Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century, London: Tate Gallery, 1996, pp. 95–97 Chessex, Pierre, “Grand Tour,” in: Michel Delon (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, London and New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 622–625 Cole, Thomas, “Cole’s Pictures of the Course of Empire,” in: The Knickerbocker 8, November, 1836, p. 629 —, “Essay on American Scenery, 1835,” in: John W. McCoubrey (ed.), American Art, 1700-1960, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965, pp. 98–110 —, “Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities,” in: The Knickerbocker, New-York Monthly Magazine 23, no. 2, February, 1844, pp. 103-113; no. 3, March, 1844, pp. 236- 244 Coleman, William L., “Spotlight Essay: Thomas Cole’s Aqueduct near Rome (1832),” in: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Spotlight Series, February, 2016, http://kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/files/spotlightFEB16.pdf (retrieved January 7th, 2017) Collins, Marsha S., Imagining Arcadia in Renaissance Romance, New York: Routledge, 2016 Cooper, James Fenimore, Notions of the Americans, Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor, 2 vols., London, 1828 DeWint, Peter, Sicilian Scenery from Drawings by P. DeWint. The Original Sketches by Major Light, London: Rodwell & Martin, 1823 Dillenberger, John, The visual arts and Christianity in America: from the colonial period to the present, New York: Crossroad, 1989 Dunlap, William, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, vol. 3, Boston: C.E. Goodspeed & Co., 1918 Emmons, Nathanael, “Miscellaneous Reflections of a Visiter, Upon the Character of Dr. Emmons,” in: Jacob Ide (ed.), The Works of Nathanael Emmons, vol. 1, 70
Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1842, pp. cxxvii–clxxii Foshay, Ella M. and Barbara Novak, Intimate Friends: Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, William Cullen Bryant, exhibition, The New-York Historical Society, New York, 2000/01, New York: New-York Historical Society, 2000 France, Peter (ed.), The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 Freedman, Luba, The Classical Pastoral in the Visual Arts, New York [et al.]: Peter Lang, 1989 Freese, John Henry, “Apollo,” in: Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 1, Cambridge [et al.]: Cambridge University Press, 1911, pp. 184–186 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Italian Journey [1786–1788], London: Penguin, 1962 —, Italian Journey, 1786-1788, edited by W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, Harmondsworth; New York: Penguin Books, 1970 Greene, George Washington, “Cole,” in: Id., Biographical Studies, New York: G.P. Putnam, 1860, pp. 74–120 Harvey, Eleanor Jones (ed.), The Painted Sketch: American Impressions from Nature, 1830–1880, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998/99, Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art in association with H.N. Abrams, 1998 Heerink, Mark, Echoing Hylas: A Study in Hellenistic and Roman Metapoetics, Madison, Wisconsin and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015 Hoffmeister, Gerhart, “Profiles of Pastoral Protagonists, 1504–1754: Derivations and Social Implications,” in: Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand (eds.), From the Greeks to the Greens: Images of the Simple Life, Madison, Wisconsin and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, pp. 18–33 Horsfall, Nicholas, “Some Problems of Titulature in Roman Literary History,” in: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies: Bulletin (BICS) 28, 1981, pp. 103–114 Howat, John K., American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987 Kasson, Joy S., “Thomas Cole,” in: Eric L. Haralson (ed.), Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, New York and London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 89–92 Kitson, Michael, “Claude (le) Lorrain [2003],” in: Grove Art Online, in: 71
http:////www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.00 1.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000018011 (retrieved May 20th, 2018) Kitson, Michael and Marcel Roethlisberger, “Claude Lorrain and the Liber veritatis, I–III,” in: The Burlington Magazine 101, 1959, pp. 14–24, 328–337, 381–388 Kopp, Édouard, Capturing Nature’s Beauty: Three Centuries of French Landscapes, Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2009 Korbacher, Dagmar, “Poetic Printmaking: Arcadia and Engravings of Giulio Campagnola,” in: Art in Print 4, no. 5, January–February, 2015, pp. 7–8 Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin and Tim Barringer, Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018 Krisak, Len (ed.), Virgil’s Eclogues, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010 Lewis, Michael J., “American Sublime,” in: The New Criterion, September, 2002, pp. 27–33 Light, William, Sicilian Scenery, London: Rodwell & Martin, 1821 Lorrain, Claude, Liber Veritatis. Or, A Collection of Two Hundred Prints, After the Original Designs of Claude le Lorrain, in the Collection of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, Executed by Richard Earlom, in the Manner and Taste of the Drawings [...], 2 vols., London: John Boydell, 1774–77; additional vol., London: Thomas Davison, for Hurst, Robinson, & Co., 1819 Loukaki, Argyro, “Greece: ancient ruinous landscapes, aesthetic identity, and issues of development,” in: Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 30, no. 1, 2004, pp. 147–164 Lyons, Maura, William Dunlap and the construction of an American art history, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005 Mariani, Andrea, “Sleeping and Waking Fauns: Harriet Goodhue Hosmer’s Experience of Italy, 1852–1870,” in: Irma B. Jaffe (ed.), The Italian Presence in American Art, 1760-1860, New York: Fordham University Press, 1989, pp. 66–81 Marrone, Gaetana, “A Cinematic Grand Tour of Sicily: Irony, Memory and Metamorphic Desire from Goethe to Tornatore,” in: California Italian Studies 1, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–12 McGuigan, John F., Jr., “‘A Painter’s Paradise’: Thomas Cole and His Transformative Experience in Florence, 1831-1832,” in: Sirpa Salenius (ed.), Sculptors, Painters and Italy: Italian Influence on Nineteenth American Art, Il Prato, 2009, pp. 37–52 McNulty, J. Bard (ed.), The Correspondence of Thomas Cole and Daniel Wadsworth: 72
Letters in the Watkinson Library, Trinity College, Hartford, and in the New York State Library, Albany, New York, Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut Historical Society, 1983 Miles, Margaret M., Art as Plunder: The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008 Miller, Angela, L., Article “Cole, Thomas,” in: Joan M. Marter (ed.), The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, vol. 1, Oxford [et al.]: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 501–505 Minor, Vernon Hyde, The Death of the Baroque and the Rhetoric of Good Taste, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006 Moffitt, John F., “The Poet and the Painter: J. H. W. Tischbein’s ‘Perfect Portrait’ of Goethe in the Campagna (1786-87),” in: The Art Bulletin 65, no. 3, 1983, pp. 440–455 Morgan, Marie, “Re-Viewing Cole,” in: The New England Quarterly 68, no. 1, 1995, pp. 138–146 Morrison, A.J.W. and Charles Nisbet (eds.), Goethe’s Travels in Italy, London: George Bell, 1883 Neset, Arne, Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture, New York [et al.]: Peter Lang, 2009 Noble, Louis Legrand, The course of empire, voyage of life, and other pictures of Thomas Cole, N.A.: with selections from his letters and miscellaneous writings illustrative of his life, character, and genius, New York: Cornish, Lamport & Co., 1853 —, The Life and Works of Thomas Cole, New York: Sheldon, Blakeman, 1856 Nugent, Thomas, The Grand Tour, or, A journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France, 3 vols., 3rd edition, London: Jay Rivington and Sons, 1778 O’Brien, Raymond J., American Sublime: Landscape and Scenery of the Lower Hudson Valley, New York: Columbia University Press, 1981 Otis, Brooks, Virgil, a Study in Civilized Poetry, Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995 Ouditt, Sharon, Impressions of Southern Italy: British Travel Writing from Henry Swinburne to Norman Douglas, New York [et al.], Routledge, 2013 Parry, Ellwood C. III, The Art of Thomas Cole: Ambition and Imagination, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1988 73
Platner, Samuel Ball, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, ed. by Thomas Ashby, London: Oxford University Press, 1929 Postle, Martin and Robin Simon (eds.), Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2014 Powell, Earl Alexander, Thomas Cole, New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990 Rand, Richard, “Between Nature and Culture: an Introduction to Claude’s Drawings,” in: Richard Rand, Antony Griffiths and Colleen M. Terry (eds.), Claude Lorrain: the Painter as Draftsman, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 21–43 Ringe, Donald A., “James Fenimore Cooper and Thomas Cole: An Analogous Technique,” in: American Literature 30, no. 1, 1958, pp. 26–36 Rosand, David, “Giorgione, Venice, and the Pastoral Vision,” in: Robert C. Cafritz, Lawrence Gowing and David Rosand (eds.), Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape, Washington, D.C.: Phillips Collection, 1988, pp. 20–81 Roscoe, Thomas, The Tourist in Italy, London: Robert Jennings and William Chaplin, 1831 Ruff, Allan R., Arcadian Visions: Pastoral Influences on Poetry, Painting and the Design of Landscape, Oxford: Windgather Press, 2015 Rümelin, Christian, “Claude Lorrain and the Notion of Printed Arcadian Landscapes,” in: Art in Print 4, no. 5, 2015, pp. 12–16 Salenius, Sirpa (ed.), Sculptors, Painters and Italy: Italian Influence on Nineteenth American Art, Il Prato, 2009 Sanford, Charles L., “The Concept of the Sublime in the Works of Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant,” in: American Literature 28, no. 4, 1957, pp. 434–448 Sear, Frank, “The Theatre at Taormina — A New Chronology,” in: Papers of the British School at Rome 64, 1996, pp. 41–79 Shackford, Martha Hale, “A Definition of the Pastoral Idyll,” in: PMLA 19, no. 4, 1904, pp. 583–592 Simon, Robin, “Richard Wilson, Rome, and the Transformation of European Art,” in: Martin Postle and Robin Simon (eds.), Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2014, pp. 1–33 Sonnabend, Martin, “Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape,” in: Martin Sonnabend and Jon Whiteley (eds.), Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape, 74
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum [et al.], 2011, pp. 9–17 Soranzo, Matteo, “Jacopo Sannazaro (1457–1530),” in: Gaetana Marrone and Paolo Puppa (eds.), Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies, New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 1674–1678 Standring, Timothy J., “Claude Lorrain. San Francisco, Williamstown and Washington,” in: The Burlington Magazine 149, no. 1250, French Art, May, 2007, pp. 356–357 Stebbins, Theodore Ellis (ed.), The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience, 1760-1914, exhibition catalog, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1992/93, Boston: Museum of Fine Arts; New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992 Sweetser, Moses Foster, Claude Lorraine, Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Co., 1878 —, Titian. Guido Reni. Claude Lorraine, Riverside, Cambridge: Houghton, Osgood, 1880 Tonsor, Stephen J., “Arcadia,” in: Jean-Charles Seigneuret (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs, Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1988, pp. 105–112 Tymn, Marshall B. (ed.), Thomas Cole’s Poetry. The collected poems of America’s foremost painter of the Hudson River School reflecting his feelings for nature and the romantic spirit of the nineteenth century, York, Pennsylvania: Liberty Cap Books, 1972 Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori, vol. 1, Florence: Sansoni, 1878 Wallach, Alan, Review of “The Art of Thomas Cole, Ambition and Imagination by Ellwood C. Parry,” in: Archives of American Art Journal 28, no. 4, 1988, pp. 21– 25 —, “Thomas Cole: Landscape and the Course of American Empire,” in: William H. Truettner and Alan Wallach (eds.), Thomas Cole: Landscape into History, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 23–111 Wittmann, Otto, “The Italian Experience (American Artists in Italy 1830–1875),” in: American Quarterly 4, no. 1, 1952, pp. 2–15 Zucker, Paul, Fascination of Decay: Ruins: Relic, Symbol, Ornament, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Gregg Press, 1968
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Appendix: Selection of Thomas Cole’s Writings
1. Pictures of the Course of Empire—The Arcadian State (1836) From: “Cole’s Pictures of the Course of Empire,” in: The Knickerbocker 8, November, 1836, p. 629.
No. 2.—The simple or Arcadian State, represents the scene after ages have passed. The gradual advancement of society has wrought a change on its aspect. The “untracked and rude” has been tamed and softened. Shepherds are tending their flocks, the ploughman with his oxen is upturning the soil, and commerce begins to stretch her wings. A village is growing by the shore, and on the summit of a hill a rude temple has been erected, from which the smoke of sacrifice is now ascending. In the foreground on the left is seated an old man, who, by describing lines in the sand, seems to have made some geometrical discovery. On the right of the picture is a female with a distaff, about to cross a rude stone bridge. On the stone is a boy, who appears to drawing a man with a sword, and ascending the road a soldier is partly seen. Under the trees beyond the female figure may be seen a group of peasants, some are dancing while one plays on a pipe. In this picture we have Agriculture, Commerce, and Religion. In the old man, who describes the mathematical figure—in the rude attempt of the boy in drawing—in the female figure with the distaff—in the vessel on the stocks, and in the primitive temple on the hill, it is evident that the useful arts, the fine arts, and the sciences, have made considerable progress. The scene is supposed to be viewed a few hours after sunrise, and in the early summer.
2. Mt. Etna (1842) From: Marshall B. Tymn (ed.), Thomas Cole’s poetry. The collected poems of America’s foremost painter of the Hudson River School reflecting his feelings for nature and the romantic spirit of the nineteenth century, York, Pennsylvania: Liberty Cap Books, 1972, pp. 134–135.
Breezes and bees were sweetly murmuring And joyously like children bright, Bedecked in shining crimson, gold and white, Frolicked and danced the flowers around my feet. Those were the fields of Etna where I strayed; 5 Those were the children of the flowers that erst Fair Proserpina into garlands wove; And where yon bubbling waters upward gush With Pluto sank the loud-lamenting maid.
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But these are fables and I lift my eyes 10 That they may wander through the cloudless sky. My thoughts’ companions; in that deep serene They soar away ‘till in that vast profound In extacy and wonder they are lost. What cloud is that, rearing its snowy head, 15 Dazzling and glorious in the morning sun, Whose mighty form o’ershadows half the world? No exaltation of the earth and sea; It moveth not; nor sun; nor wind disperse; Nor shatter its indissoluble mass! 20
Etna! The fastenings of thy lofty tent Are in the rock-barred earth! Thy roots Beneath the rushing of the briny deep! In older times Charybdis furious waved And Scylla clamored, horrid, at thy feet 25 But they are wasted by consuming time Grown old and weak; yet thou, forever young, Outlivest centuries! Beneath thy gaze Nations have birth and death. Augmenting ever, Time that doth crumble temples, pyramids; 30 Hath watched thee grow until thy regal hand Usurps the empyrean with its starry realms. But for yon filmy smoke, that from thy crest
Continual issues; there would be no sign That from thy mighty breast bursts forth at times 35 The sulphurous storm—the avalanche of fire; That midnight is made luminous and day A ghastly twilight by thy lurid breath. By thee tormented Earth is tossed and riven; The shuddering mountains reel; temples and towers 40 The works of man and man himself, his hopes His harvests, all, a desolation made!
Sublime art thou O Mount! Whether beneath The moon in silence sleeping thy woods And driven snows, and golden fields of corn; 45 Or bleat upon thy slant breast the gentle flocks, And shepherds in the mellow flow of eve
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Pipe merrily; or when thy scathed sides Are laved with fire; answered thine earthquake voice By screams and clamor of affrighted men. 50 Lone mountain of the pallid brow and heart Of fire! Thou art a resting place for thought, Thought reaching far above thy bounds; from thee To Him who bade the central fires construct This wond’rous fabric; lifted by thy dread brow 55 To meet the sun while yet the earth is dark, And ocean with its ever murmuring waves.
[May, 1842]
3. Thomas Cole, Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities (1844)299 From: The Knickerbocker 23, no. 2, 1844, pp. 103–113.
A few months only have elapsed since I travelled over the classic land of Sicily; and the impressions left on my mind by its picturesqueness, fertility, and the grandeur of its architectural remains, are more vivid, and fraught with more sublime associations, than any I received during my late sojourn in Europe. The pleasure of travelling, it seems to me, is chiefly experienced after the journey is over; when we can sit down by our own snug fire-side, free from all the fatigues and annoyances which are its usual concomitants; and, if our untravelled friends are with us, indulge in the comfortable and harmless vanity of describing the wonders and dangers of those distant lands, and like Goldsmith’s old soldier, ‘Shoulder the crutch and show how fields were won.’300 I was about to remark, that those who travel only in books travel with much less discomfort, and perhaps enjoy as much, as those who travel in reality; but I fancy there are some of my young readers who would rather test the matter by their own experience, than by the inadequate descriptions which I have to offer them. Sicily, as is well known, is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It was anciently called Trinacria, from its triangular shape, and is about six hundred miles in circumference. Each of its extremities is terminated by a promontory, one of which
299 The present source is the first part of a longer essay on Sicilian Scenery and Antiquities. The second part was published in the March issue in the same journal; see The Knickerbocker 23, no. 3, March, 1844, pp. 236–244; it is not reprinted here as Cole’s themes and compositional elements are sufficiently clear in the first part. The text has been carefully adapted to modern English spelling and punctuation. All italics and small caps are from the edition of Knickerbocker. The bold numbers in square brackets refer to the journal’s page numbers. Cole’s wrong spelling of Italian terms has been preserved, but respectively indicated. 300 The quote stems from the memoirs of the Puritan theologian Nathanael Emmons (1745–1840). Nathanael Emmons, “Miscellaneous Reflections of a Visiter, Upon the Character of Dr. Emmons,” in: Jacob Ide (ed.), The Works of Nathanael Emmons, vol. 1, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1842, pp. cxxvii–clxxii, here p. cl. 78
was called by the ancients Lilybeum, and faces Africa; another called Pachynus, faces the Peloponessus of Greece; and the third, Pelorum, now Capo di Boco, faces Italy. The aspect of the country is very mountainous: some of the mountains are lofty; but towering above all, like an enthroned spirit, rises Aetna. His giant form can be seen from elevated grounds in the most remote parts of the island, and the mariner can discern his snowy crown more than a hundred miles. But Sicily abounds in luxuriant plains and charming valleys, and its soil is proverbially rich: it once bore the appellation of the Granary of Rome; and it is now said that if properly tilled it would produce more grain than any country of its size [104] in the world. Its beauty and fertility were often celebrated by ancient bards, who described the sacred flocks and herds of Apollo on its delightful slopes.301 The plain of Enna, where Proserpine and her nymphs gathered flowers, was famous for delicious honey;302 and according to an ancient writer, hounds lost their scent when hunting, in consequence of the odoriferous flowers which perfumed the air; and this may be no fable;303 for in Spring, as I myself have seen,304 the flowers are abundant and fragrant beyond description; and it seemed to me that the gardens of Europe had been supplied with two-thirds of their choicest treasures from the wild stores of Sicily. The history of Sicily is as varied and interesting as the features of its surface; […].305 […] a land formed by nature in her fairest mould; but which the crimes and ambition [105] of men have desecrated by violence, oppression, and bloodshed; and with the substitution of a word, one might exclaim with the poet: “Sicilia! O Sicilia! thou who hast The fatal rift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame. Oh God! that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back who press To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress!”306
301 In Greek mythology, Apollo was described as the protector of herds. John Henry Freese, “Apollo,” in: Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 1, Cambridge [et al.]: Cambridge University Press, 1911, pp. 184– 186. 302 This refers to the epos De raptu Proserpinae (The Abduction of Proserpine) Roman poet Claudian (AD c. 370–404). 303 Cole alludes here to the fifth book (about Europe) of the Bibliotheca historica (5. 3. 2) by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st cent. BC). 304 Cole stayed in Sicily about six weeks, from early April to late May in 1842. 305 The extensive account of the history of Sicily on p. 104 has been omitted here. 306 This quote adjusts Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV, Stanza 42 by referring it to Sicily: “Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast / The fatal gift of beauty, which became / A funeral dower of present woes and past, […].” 79
Her brightest age was when the Greek threw the light of his genius around her; when rose those mighty temples which now, even in their ruin, call forth the wonder and admiration of the traveller; her greatest degradation was in the age just passed away. As an exemplification of this, it is sufficient to say, that from the time of the Norman until the accession of the present monarch, a space of seven hundred years, not a single road has been constructed in the island. But we have reason to believe that a brighter day now dawns, and that ere long the sun of civilization will dispel the clouds that have so long overshadowed the mountains of Sicily. He who would make a tour through this magnificent land, must make up his mind to submit to much fatigue, some danger, and innumerable annoyances; such as filth, bad fare, the continual torment of vermin; lodgings, to which a stable with clean hay would be in comparison a paradise; knavish attempts at imposition of various kinds, etc. He must mount on a mule whose saddle is of rude and of abominable construction; whose bit is a sort of iron vice, which clasps the animal’s nose and under-jaw, and every day wears away the flesh; and whose bridle is a piece of rope fastened to the bit on one side only. He must ford rivers of various depth; he must fear no ascent or descent, however precipitous, if there appears to be a track; and at times he must have a careful eye to the priming of his pistol; and above all, a patient and enduring temper is a great comfort. The aspect of Sicily is widely different from that of this country; its beauty is dependant on other forms and associations. Here, we have vast forests that stretch their shady folds in melancholy grandeur; the mountain tops themselves are clad in thick umbrage, which, rejoicing in the glory of the autumnal season, array themselves in rainbow dyes. There, no wide forests shade the land; but mountains more abrupt than ours, and bearing the scars of volcanic fire and earthquake on their brows, are yet clothed with flowers and odoriferous shrubs. The plains and slopes of the mountains are now but partially under cultivation; vineyards and olive-groves generally clothe the latter, while over the gentler undulating country, or the plains, fenceless fields stretch far away, a wilderness of waving grain, through which the traveller may ride for hours nor meet a human being, nor see a habitation, save when he lifts his eyes to some craggy steep or mountain pinnacle, where stands the clustered village. The villages and larger towns are generally set among groves of orange, almond, and pomegranate trees, with here and there a dark Carruba, or Leutisk tree, casting its ample shade. [106] Fields of the broad bean, the chief food of the laboring classes, serves at times to vary with vivid green the monotony of the landscape. The traveller rolls along over no Macadamised road in his comfortable carriage, but mounted on his mule, leaves him to choose his own track among the numerous ones that form what is called the strada-maëstro [sic], or master-road, between city and city. Here and there he will come to a stone fountain, constructed perhaps centuries ago, which still furnishes a delightful beverage for himself and beast. Oftentimes the road leads through a country entirely waste, and covered with tall bunches of grass or the dwarfish palmetto; sometimes in the cultivated districts the road is bounded by the formidable prickly-pear, which grows to the height of twenty feet, or by rows of the
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stately aloe, and not unfrequently by wild hedges of myrtle, intertwined with innumerable climbing plants, whose flowers the traveller can pick as he rides along. Generally the road-side is perfectly enamelled with flowers of various hue and fragrance. No majestic river, like the Hudson, spreads before him, with all its glittering sails and swift steam-boats; but ever and anon the blue and placid Mediterranean bounds his vision, or indents the shore, with here and there a picturesque and lazy barque reflected in the waves. I have before said that the towns and villages are generally perched like eagles’ nests in high places. This is particularly the case with those of the interior: many of them are inaccessible to carriages, except the Letiga, a sort of large sedan-chair, gaudily decorated with pictures of saints, and suspended between two mules, one of which trots before and the other behind, to the continual din of numerous bells and the harsh shouts of the muleteers. I never saw one of these vehicles, which are the only travelling carriages of the interior of Sicily, without thinking that there might be a land-sickness even worse than a sea sickness; for the motion of the letiga in clambering up and down the broken steeps must be far more tempestuous than any thing ever experienced at sea. Between village and village you see no snug villa, farm-house, or cottage by the road-side, or nestling among the trees; but here and there a gloomy castellated building, a lonely ruin or stern Martello tower, whose dilapidated walls crown some steep headland, against whose base washes the ever- murmuring waves. Now the traveller descends to the beach, his only road; the mountains are far inland, or dip their broad bases in the sea-foam, or impend in fearful masses over his head. He ascends again, and journeys over wastes which undoubtedly in the time of the Greek and the Roman were covered with fruits and grain; but which now are treeless and desolate as the deep whose breezes stir the flowers that deck them. At times he must ford streams, which, if swollen with late rains, are perilous in the extreme. I remember once on my journey descending from one of those treeless wastes upon a spot very different from any thing on this side of the Atlantic. It was called Verdura, from its green and verdant character. A stream which flowed through a plain bounded by lofty mountains here fell into the sea. A large mill, which much resembles an ancient castle, and in all probability had served both purposes in times gone by, stood near. Upon the sandy beach close by, and hauled entirely out of the [107] water, lay several vessels in the style of Homer’s ships; and I have no doubt bore a strong resemblance to ships of ancient time, for they were picturesquely formed, and painted fantastically with figures of fishes and eyes. The wild-looking mariners were lounging lazily about in their shaggy capotes, or engaged in loading their vessels with grain, the product of the neighboring plains. Up the steep we had just descended a letiga was slowly winding; and on a green declivity over-looking the sea, a flock of goats were browsing, and their shepherd reclined near in listless idleness. Open and treeless as was this scene, there was such a peaceful character about it, such an air of primitive simplicity, that it made a strong impression on my mind.
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It does not come within the scope of this paper to offer any description of the larger cities of Sicily, Palermo, Messina, etc. Most readers have seen accounts of them more ample and more interesting than I could offer. Of the smaller places I must content myself with giving a very general description, so that I may retain the requisite space, in this division of my article, for some notice of an ascent which I made to the sublime summit of Mount Aetna. The secondary towns to which I have alluded, such as Calatifini, Sciacca, Caltagerone, etc., are in general picturesquely situated, and are built in a massive and sometimes even in a magnificent style. The churches and houses are all of hewn stone, and exhibit the various styles of architecture of the builders; the Saracenic, the Norman-Gothic, or the later Spanish taste. Sometimes the styles are fantastically intermixed; but the whole, to the architect, is extremely interesting. Flat roofs and projecting stone balconies from the upper windows are perhaps the most characteristic features of the houses. The churches, though large, are seldom beautiful specimens of architecture; and the interior is in general extremely ornate, and decorated with gaudy gilding and pictures, and images of CHRIST, and saints, disgustingly painted. The streets, wide or narrow, would appear to us somewhat gloomy and prison-like; and paint is a thing scarcely known on the exterior or perhaps interior of an ordinary house. The air of the interior of the common houses of the Sicilian towns is as gloomy and comfortless as can be imagined. A few wooden benches, a table firmly fixed in the stone pavement, a fire-place composed of a few blocks of stone placed on the floor, the smoke of which is allowed to make its escape as it best can at the window, which is always destitute of glass, and is closed by a rude wooden shutter when required; a bed consisting of a mattress of the same hue as the floor, raised a few feet from it by means of boards on a rude frame; some sheep-skins for blankets, and sheets of coarse stuff whose color serves as an effectual check on the curiosity of him who would pry too closely into its texture; are the chief articles of furniture to be found in the habitations of the Sicilian poor. Beside the human inhabitants of these uninviting abodes, there are innumerable lively creatures, whose names it were almost impolite to mention in polished ears; and I might not have alluded to them had they confined themselves to such places; but they rejoice in the palace as well as in the cottage, and to the traveller’s sorrow inflict themselves without his consent as travelling companions through the whole Sicilian tour. [108] The houses of the more wealthy are spacious and airy, but not much superior in point of comfort. They are often of commanding exterior, and are called palazzi, or palaces. Of course, there are exceptions to this general character of discomfort; but judging from my own observation, they are few. On approaching a Sicilian village, the eye of the traveller will almost surely be attracted by a capacious and solid building, surmounted by a belfry-tower, and commanding the most charming prospect in the vicinity. It is surrounded with orange groves and cypress-trees, and looks like a place fitted for the enjoyment of a contemplative life. He will not long remain in doubt as to the purpose of the building whose site is so delightfully chosen; for
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walking slowly along the shady path, or seated in some pleasant nook, singly or in groups, he will perceive the long-robed monks, the reverend masters of the holy place. Connoisseurs say that a landscape is imperfect without figures;307 and as that is the case in a picture, it is most probably so in a magazine article; and the reader might complain if I were to neglect giving some slight outlines of the figures of the Sicilian landscape. In travelling from city to city, although they may not be more than twenty miles apart, the wayfarer meets with very few persons on the road; seldom an individual, and only now and then, at an interval of miles, a group of men mounted on mules, each person carrying a gun; or perhaps a convoy of loaded mules and asses with several muleteers, some mounted and some on foot, who urge by uncouth cries and blows the weary beasts over the rocky or swampy ground, or up some steep acclivity or across some torrent’s bed. At times he will see a shepherd or two watching their flocks; these are half-naked, wild looking beings, scarcely raised in the scale of intelligence above their bleating charge. Their dwelling may be hard by, a conical hut of grass or straw, or a ruined tower. On the fertile slopes or plains he will sometimes observe a dozen yokes of oxen ploughing abreast. The laborers probably chose this contiguity for the sake of company across the wide fields. If the grass or grain is to be cut, it is by both men and women armed with a rude sickle only. It is seldom you meet either man or woman on foot upon the roads; men scarcely ever. Donkeys are about as numerous as men, and their ludicrous bray salutes your ear wherever the human animal is to be seen. The peasant-women through a great part of Sicily wear a semi-circular piece of woollen cloth over their heads; it is always black or white, and hangs in agreeable folds over the neck and shoulders. There is but little beauty among them; and alas! how should there be? They are in general filthy; the hair of both old and young is allowed to fall in uncombed elf-locks about their heads; and the old women are often hideous and disgustful in the extreme. The heart bleeds for the women: they have more than their share of the labors of the field; they have all the toils of the men, added to the pains and cares of womanhood. They dig, they reap, they carry heavy burthens — burthens almost incredible. In the vicinity of Aetna I met a woman walking down the road knitting: on her head was a large mass of lava weighing at least thirty pounds, and on the top of this lay a small hammer. Being puzzled [109] to know why the woman carried such a piece of lava where lava was so abundant, I inquired ‘the wherefore’ of Luigi, our guide. He answered that as she wished to knit, and not having pockets, she had taken that plan to carry the little hammer conveniently. That piece of stone, which would break our necks to carry, was evidently to her no more than a heavy hat would be to us. It may be thought that I draw a sorry picture of these poor Islanders; but I would have it understood that on the side of Messina, and some other parts, there is apparently a little more civilization; but they are an oppressed and degraded peasantry; ignorant, superstitious, filthy, and condemned to live on the coarsest food. They are as the beasts that perish, driven by
307 In Baroque, staffage figures could raise a landscape to the higher rank of a historical painting and thus increase a painting’s price. 83
necessity to sow that which they may not reap. How applicable are the words of ADDISON: “How has kind Heaven adorn’d the happy land And scattered blessings with a wasteful hand! But what avails her unexhausted stores, Her blooming mountains and her sunny shores. With all the gifts that heaven and earth impart, The smiles of nature and the charms of art, While proud oppression in her valleys reigns, And tyranny usurps her happy plains? The poor inhabitant beholds in vain The reddening orange and the swelling grain: Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines. And in the myrtle’s fragrant shade repines: Starves, in the midst of nature’s bounty curst, And in the loaded vineyard dies of thirst.”308
But the Sicilians are naturally a gay, light-hearted people, like the Greeks, their forefathers; and if the cloud which now rests upon them were removed, and we have reason to think it is lifting, they would be as bright and sunny as their own skies. The women of the better classes wear the black mantilla when they venture into the streets, which they seldom do, except to attend mass or the confessional. This robe is extremely elegant, as it is worn, but it requires an adept to adjust it gracefully. It covers the whole person from head to foot; in parts drawn closely to the form, in others falling in free folds. But for its color, I should admire it much: it seems such an incongruity for a young and beautiful female to be habited in what appear to be mourning robes. I was often reminded of those wicked lines of Byron’s on the gondola: “For sometimes they contain a deal of fun. Like mourning-coaches when the funeral’s done.”309
But let us turn from the animate to the inanimate, and visit the famous Aetna, called by the Sicilians Mongibello. From the silence of Homer on the subject, it is supposed that in his remote age the fires of the mountain were unknown; but geologists have proof that they have a far more ancient date. The Grecian poet Pindar is the first who mentions its eruptions. He died four hundred and thirty-five years before CHRIST; from that time to this, at irregular intervals, it has vomited forth its destructive lavas. It is computed to be eleven thousand feet high. Its base, more than
308 Joseph Addison, A Letter from Italy, to the Right Honourable Charles, Lord Halifax [...] 1701, London: H. Hills, 1709, 105–118. The English poet and statesman John Addison (1672–1719) addressed this poem to Charles Montague, subsequently 1st Earl of Halifax (1661–1715). The poem is preceded by verses from the second book of Virgil’s Georgics (2, 173–175). 309 Lord Byron, Beppo (1818), stanza 20, 159–160. 84
an [sic] hundred miles in circumference, is interspersed with numerous conical hills, each of which is an extinct crater, whose sides, now shaded by the vine, the fig tree, and the habitations of man, once glowed with the fiery torrent. Some of them are yet almost destitute of vegetation; mere heaps of scoriae and ashes; but the more [110] ancient ones are richly clad with verdure. Let the reader imagine a mountain whose base is as broad as the whole range of the Catskills, as seen from Catskill village, rising to nearly three times their height; its lower parts are of gentle ascent; but as it rises it becomes more and more steep, until it terminates in a broken summit. Imagine it divided, as the eye ascends, into three regions or belts: the first and lowest is covered with villages, gardens, vineyards, olive-groves, oranges, and fields of grain and flax, and the date-bearing palm. The second region, which commences about four thousand feet above the sea, is called the Regione Sylvosa, or woody region. Here chestnuts, hexes, and on the north pines of great size flourish. This belt reaches to the elevation of about seven thousand feet, where the Regione Scoperta, or bare region, commences. The lower part of this is intermingled lava, rocks, volcanic sands, and snow; still higher are vast fields of spotless snow, which centuries have seen unwasted, with here and there a ridgy crag of black lava, too steep for the snows to lodge upon; and toward the summit of the cone, dark patches of scoriae and ashes, which, heated by the slumbering fires, defy the icy blasts of these upper realms of air. It will readily be supposed that, when viewed from a distance, Mount Aetna is an object to make a deep impression on the mind:
“BUT for yon filmy smoke, that from thy crest Continual issues like a morning mist The sun disperses, there would be no sign That from thy mighty breast bursts forth at times The sulphurous storm — the avalanche pf fire; That midnight is made luminous, and day A ghastly twilight, by thy lurid breath. By thee tormented, Earth is tossed and riven: The shuddering mountains reel; temples and towers, The works of man, and man himself, his hopes His harvests, all a desolation made: Sublime art thou, O Mount! whether beneath The moon in silence sleeping with thy woods, And driving snows, and golden fields of corn; Or bleat on thy slant breast the gentle flocks, And shepherds in the mellow glow of eve Pipe merrily; or when thy scathed sides Are laved with fire, answered thine earthquake voice By screams and clamor of affrighted men. Sublime thou art! — a resting-place for thought, Thought reaching far above thy bounds; from thee To Him who bade the central fires construct 85
This wondrous fabric; lifted thy dread brow To meet the sun while yet the earth is dark. And ocean, with its ever-murmuring waves.”310
On the ninth of May, myself and travelling companion commenced the ascent of Mount Aetna; and as the season was not the most favorable, the snows extending farther down the sides of the mountain than in summer, we were equipped, under the direction of our guide, with coarse woollen stockings to be drawn over the pantaloons, thick-soled shoes, and woollen caps. Mounting our mules, we left Catania in the morning. The road was good and of gradual ascent until we reached Nicolosi, about fourteen miles up the mountain. We saw little that was particularly interesting on our route except that the hamlets through which we passed bore fearful evidences of the effects of earthquake. Arrived at Nicolosi, the place where travellers usually procure guides and mules for the mountain, it was our intention to rest for the remainder of the [111] day; but Monte Rosso, an extinguished crater, being in the vicinity, my curiosity got the better of my intention to rest, and I sallied forth to examine it. The road lay through the village, which is built of the lava, and is arid and black, and many of the buildings rent and twisted. Monte Rosso was formed by the eruption of 1669, which threw out a torrent of lava that flowed thirteen miles, destroying a great part of the city of Catania in its resistless course to the sea, where it formed a rugged promontory which at this day appears as black, bare, and herbless as on the day when its fiery course was arrested by the boiling waters. And here I would remark, that the lavas of Mine, are very different from those of Vesuvius. The latter decompose in half a century, and become capable of cultivation; those of Aetna remain unchanged for centuries, as that of Monte Rosso testifies. It has now been exposed to the action of the weather nearly two hundred years, with the exception of the interstices where the dust and sand have collected, it is destitute of vegetation. Broken in cooling into masses of rough but sharp fracture, its aspect is horrid and forbidding, and it is exceedingly difficult to walk over. If two centuries have produced so little change, how many centuries must have served to form the rich soil which covers the greater part of the mountain’s sides and base! Our purpose was to see the sun rise from the summit of Aetna; and at nine in the evening, our mules and guides being ready, we put on our Sicilian capotes, and sallied forth. We had two guides, a muleteer, and as there was no moon, a man with a lantern to light the mules in their passage over the beds of lava. For several miles the way was uninteresting, it being too dark to see any thing except the horrid lava or sand beneath the feet of the mules. At times the road was so steep that we were ordered by our guides to lean forward on the necks of the mules, to keep them and ourselves from being thrown back. At length we entered the woody region. Here the path was less rocky; and as we wound up the mountain’s side, beneath the shadows of noble trees, I could not but feel the solemn quietness of a night on Aetna, and contrast it with what
310 As the comparison with the longer version (see above, no. 2) shows, the poem had been abridged and slightly for its publication within the article. 86
has been and what will in all probability be again, the intermitting roar of the neighboring volcano, and the dreadful thunder of the earthquake. At midnight we arrived at the Casa delle Neve [sic], or House of Snow. This is a rude building of lava, with bare walls, entirely destitute of furniture. We made a fire on the ground, took some refreshments which we had brought with us, and in about an hour remounted our mules, and proceeded on our journey. We soon left the region of woods; and being now at an elevation of seven thousand feet above the sea, felt somewhat cold, and buttoned our capotes closer about us. From the ridges of lava along which we rode, by the light of the stars which now became brilliant, we could discern the snow stretching in long lines down the ravines on either hand; and as we advanced, approaching nearer and nearer, until at length it spread in broad fields before us. As the mules could go no farther, we dismounted, and taking an iron-pointed staff” in our hands, we commenced the journey over the snows. It was now half-past one, and we had seven miles to traverse before reaching the summit. The first part of the ascent was discouraging, for it was steep, and the snow so slippery that [112] we sometimes fell on our faces; but it became rather less steep as we ascended, and though fatiguing, we got along comfortably. As the atmosphere was becoming rare, and the breathing hurried, we sat on the snow for a few minutes now and then. At such times we could not but be struck with the splendor of the stars, far beyond any thing I had ever seen. The milky way seemed suspended in the deep heavens, like a luminous cloud, with clear and definite outline. We next arrived at the Casa degli Inglese [sic]; so called, but alas for us! the ridge of the roof and a part of the gable were all that rose above the snow. In the midst of summer, travellers may make use of it; but to us it was unavailing, except the gable, which served in a measure to shield us from the icy wind which now swept over the mountain. We again partook of a little refreshment, by way of preparation for the most arduous part of our undertaking, and were now at the foot of the great cone. The ascent was toilsome in the extreme. Snow, melted beneath in many places by the heat of the mountain; sharp ridges of lava; loose sand, ashes, and cinders, into which last the foot sank at every step, made the ascent difficult as well as dangerous. The atmosphere was so rare that we had to stop every few yards to breathe. At such times we could hear our hearts beat within us like the strokes of a drum. But it was now light, and we reached the summit of the great cone just as the sun rose. It was a glorious sight which spread before our eyes! We took a hasty glance into the gloomy crater of the volcano, and throwing ourselves on the warm ashes, gazed in wonder and astonishment. It would be. vain for me to attempt a description of the scene. I scarcely knew the world in which I had lived. The hills and valleys over which we had been travelling for many days, were comprised within the compass of a momentary glance. Sicily lay at our feet, with all its ‘many folded’ mountains, its plains, its promontories, and its bays; and round all, the sea stretched far and wide like a lower sky; the Lipari islands, Stromboli and its volcano, floating upon it like small dusky clouds; and the Calabrian coast visible, I should suppose, for two hundred miles, like a long horizontal bank of vapor! As the sun rose, the great pyramidal shadow of Aetna was cast across the island, and all “beneath it rested in twilight-
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gloom. Turning from this wonderful scene, we looked down into the crater, on whose verge we lay. It was a fearful sight, apparently more than a thousand feet in depth, and a mile in breadth, with precipitous and in some places overhanging sides, which were varied with strange and discordant colors. The steeps were rent into deep chasms and gulfs, from which issued white sulphurous smoke, that rose and hung in fantastic wreaths about the horrid crags; thence springing over the edge of the crater, seemed to dissipate in the clear keen air. I was somewhat surprised to perceive several sheets of snow lying at the very bottom of the crater, a proof that the internal fires were in a deep slumber. The edge of the crater was a mere ridge of scoriae and ashes, varying in height; and it required some care, in places, to avoid falling down the steep on one hand, or being precipitated into the gulf on the other. The air was keen; but fortunately there was little wind; and after spending about an hour on the summit, we commenced our descent. [113] We varied our course from the one we took on ascending, and visited an altar erected to Jupiter by the ancients, now called the Torre del Filosofo. Soon after we came upon the verge of a vast crater, the period of whose activity is beyond the earliest records of history. Vol di Bove, as it is called, is a tremendous scene. Imagine a basin several miles across, a thousand feet in depth at least, with craggy and perpendicular walls on every side; its bottom broken into deep ravines and chasms, and shattered pinnacles, as though the lava in its molten state had been shaken and tossed by an earthquake, and then suddenly congealed. It is into this ancient crater that the lava of the most recent eruption is descending. It is fortunate that it has taken that direction. In another and concluding number, the reader’s attention will be directed to the Architectural Antiquities of Sicily, especially those of Grecian structure, which will be described in the order in which they were visited.
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Illustrations
1. Thomas Cole, The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching, about 1842, oil on canvas, 49.85 × 76.52 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. 47.1198
2. Mathew B. Brady, Portrait of Thomas Cole, daguerreotype, c. 1845, New-York Historical Society Library, New York, inv. PR.012.2.885
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3. Thomas Cole, Aqueduct near Rome, 1832, oil on canvas, 113 × 171.2 cm, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in Saint Louis, inv. WU 1987.4
4. Thomas Cole, Roman Campagna, 1843, oil on canvas, 82.6 × 122 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Bequest of Clara Hinton Gould, inv. 1948.189
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5. Thomas Cole, Italian Scene, Composition, 1833, oil on canvas, 95.2 × 138.4 cm, The New- York Historical Society, inv. 1858.19
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6. Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of Titus, pl. 82, from vol. I of Richard Earlom’s Liber Veritatis, London, 1777
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7. Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of Titus, 1644, oil on canvas, 102 × 135 cm, Private Collection
8. Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape with the Ponte Molle, 1645, oil on canvas, 74.5 × 98 cm, Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery
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9. Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: The Pastoral or Arcadian State, 1834, oil on canvas, 99.70 × 160.66 cm, The New-York Historical Society, inv. 1858.2
94
10. Thomas Cole, Dream of Arcadia, 1838, oil on canvas, 98.11 × 159.38 cm, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, inv. 1954.71
11. Thomas Cole, An Evening in Arcadia, 1843, oil on canvas, 82.87 × 122.87 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Bequest of Clara Hinton Gould, inv. 1948.190
95
12. Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1786–87, oil on canvas, 164 × 206 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, M.
96
13. Thomas Cole, Campagna di Roma (Study for Aqueduct near Rome), 1832, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 21.59 × 29.21 cm, Alexander Gallery, New York
14. Thomas Cole, Campagna di Roma (Study for Aqueduct near Rome), 1832, oil on paper on canvas, 20.64 × 31.12 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, inv. 1988.31
97
#
15. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct, probably 1826, oil on paper, laid on canvas, 22.8 × 34 cm, National Gallery, London, inv. NG3285
16. George Inness, Roman Campagna, 1858, oil on canvas, 50.8 × 76.2 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, inv. 1947.08
98
17. Thomas Cole, The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, 1844, oil on canvas, 112.4 × 167.6 cm, New-York Historical Society, inv. 1858.62
18. Thomas Cole, The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, 1842, pen and brown ink and brown wash over graphite pencil on off-white wove paper, 26 × 36.5 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.421.A
99
19. Thomas Cole, The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (detail), about 1842, oil on canvas, 49.85 × 76.52 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. 47.1198
20. Thomas Cole, The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (detail), about 1842, oil on canvas, 49.85 × 76.52 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. 47.1198
100
21. Maarten van Heemskerck, Self-portrait with the Colosseum, 1553, oil on canvas, 42.2 × 54 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
101
22. Richard Wilson, Tivoli, the Cascatelle Grande and the Villa of Maecenas, 1752, oil on canvas, 49.3 × 64 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.746
23. Richard Wilson, View of Tivoli: the Cascatelle and the ‘Villa of Maecenas’, 1752, oil on canvas, 73.3 × 97.2 cm, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, inv. DPG171
102
24. Richard Wilson, The Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna, 1752, oil on canvas, 50 × 66 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.747
25. Hubert Robert, A Colonnade in Ruins, exact date unknown, oil on canvas, 58.4 × 155.3 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 17.190.32
103
26. Thomas Cole, Mount Etna from Taormina, Sicily, 1842, graphite pencil on beige wove paper, 29.4 × 41.3 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.406
27. Thomas Cole, Mount Etna from Taormina, 1843, oil on canvas, 199.71 × 306.39 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; purchase, inv. 1844.6
104
28. Giovanni Crupi, Greek theatre—Taormina, late 19th century
29. Thomas Cole, The Ruins at Taormina, 1842, oil and pencil on board, 30.48 × 40.96 cm, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York
105
30. Peter DeWint, Sicilian Scenery from Drawings by P. DeWint. The Original Sketches by Major Light, London: Rodwell & Martin, 1823
31. Carl Anton Rottmann, Taormina with Mount Etna, probably 1829/30, oil on canvas, 48 × 72.9 cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, inv. WAF 845
106
32. Thomas Cole, Mount Etna from Taormina, 1844, oil on canvas, 81.92 × 121.92 cm, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut. Anonymous gift, inv. 1943.466
107
List of Illustrations
1. Thomas Cole, The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching, about 1842, oil on canvas, 49.85 × 76.52 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. 47.1198 2. Mathew B. Brady, Portrait of Thomas Cole, daguerreotype, c. 1845, New-York Historical Society Library, New York, inv. PR.012.2.885 3. Thomas Cole, Aqueduct near Rome, 1832, oil on canvas, 113 × 171.2 cm, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in Saint Louis, inv. WU 1987.4 4. Thomas Cole, Roman Campagna, 1843, oil on canvas, 82.6 × 122 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Bequest of Clara Hinton Gould, inv. 1948.189 5. Thomas Cole, Italian Scene, Composition, 1833, oil on canvas, 95.2 × 138.4 cm, The New-York Historical Society, inv. 1858.19 6. Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of Titus, pl. 82 from vol. I of Richard Earlom’s Liber Veritatis, London, 1777 7. Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of Titus, 1644, oil on canvas, 102 × 135 cm, Private Collection 8. Claude Lorrain, Pastoral Landscape with the Ponte Molle, 1645, oil on canvas, 74.5 × 98 cm, Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery 9. Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: The Pastoral or Arcadian State, 1834, oil on canvas, 99.70 × 160.66 cm, The New-York Historical Society, inv. 1858.2 10. Thomas Cole, Dream of Arcadia, 1838, oil on canvas, 98.11 × 159.38 cm, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, inv. 1954.71 11. Thomas Cole, An Evening in Arcadia, 1843, oil on canvas, 82.87 × 122.87 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Bequest of Clara Hinton Gould, inv. 1948.190 12. Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1786–87, oil on canvas, 164 × 206 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, M. 13. Thomas Cole, Campagna di Roma (Study for Aqueduct near Rome), 1832, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 21.59 × 29.21 cm, Alexander Gallery, New York 14. Thomas Cole, Campagna di Roma (Study for Aqueduct near Rome), 1832, oil on paper on canvas, 20.64 × 31.12 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, inv. 1988.31
108
15. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct, probably 1826, oil on paper, laid on canvas, 22.8 × 34 cm, National Gallery, London, inv. NG3285 16. George Inness, Roman Campagna, 1858, oil on canvas, 50.8 × 76.2 cm, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, inv. 1947.08 17. Thomas Cole, The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, 1844, oil on canvas, 112.4 × 167.6 cm, New-York Historical Society, inv. 1858.62 18. Thomas Cole, The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, 1842, pen and brown ink and brown wash over graphite pencil on off-white wove paper, 26 × 36.5 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.421.A 19. Thomas Cole, The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (detail), about 1842, oil on canvas, 49.85 × 76.52 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. 47.1198 20. Thomas Cole, The Temple of Segesta with the Artist Sketching (detail), about 1842, oil on canvas, 49.85 × 76.52 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. 47.1198 21. Maarten van Heemskerck, Self-portrait with the Colosseum, 1553, oil on canvas, 42.2 × 54 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 22. Richard Wilson, Tivoli, the Cascatelle Grande and the Villa of Maecenas, 1752, oil on canvas, 49.3 × 64 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.746 23. Richard Wilson, View of Tivoli: the Cascatelle and the ‘Villa of Maecenas’, 1752, oil on canvas, 73.3 × 97.2 cm, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, inv. DPG171 24. Richard Wilson, The Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna, 1752, oil on canvas, 50 × 66 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.747 25. Hubert Robert, A Colonnade in Ruins, exact date unknown, oil on canvas, 58.4 × 155.3 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 17.190.32 26. Thomas Cole, Mount Etna from Taormina, Sicily, 1842, graphite pencil on beige wove paper, 29.4 × 41.3 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 39.406 27. Thomas Cole, Mount Etna from Taormina, 1843, oil on canvas, 199.71 × 306.39 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; purchase, inv. 1844.6 28. Giovanni Crupi, Greek theatre – Taormina, end of 19th century 29. Thomas Cole, The Ruins at Taormina, 1842, oil and pencil on board, 30.48 × 40.96 cm, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York 30. Peter DeWint, Sicilian Scenery from Drawings by P. DeWint. The Original Sketches by Major Light, London: Rodwell & Martin, 1823 31. Carl Anton Rottmann, Taormina with Mount Etna, probably 1829/30, oil on canvas, 48 × 72.9 cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, inv. WAF 845 109
32. Thomas Cole, Mount Etna from Taormina, 1844, oil on canvas, 81.92 × 121.92 cm, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut. Anonymous gift, inv. 1943.466
110