Something of an Architect: Thomas Cole and the Country House Ideal
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Something of an Architect: Thomas Cole and the Country House Ideal By William Lavine Coleman A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Margaretta M. Lovell, Chair Professor Elizabeth A. Honig Professor Andrew M. Shanken Spring 2015 Copyright 2015, William Lavine Coleman All rights reserved Abstract Something of an Architect: Thomas Cole and the Country House Ideal by William Lavine Coleman Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art University of California, Berkeley Professor Margaretta M. Lovell, Chair The Anglo-American artist Thomas Cole is now firmly established in the canon for his landscape paintings and allegories but it has not been adequately understood how deeply he was invested in architecture. This dissertation seeks to remedy that oversight by studying archival evidence that shows his sophistication as a painter, designer, and critic of buildings and his participation in intellectual currents of the time through the built environment. What discussion there has been of Cole’s little known work in architecture in the past has treated the episodes under discussion as anomalous or peripheral to his core work. On the contrary, “Something of an Architect: Thomas Cole and the Country House Ideal” demonstrates the extent to which many of his best known paintings were the product of practical architectural endeavors with which he was involved in the same years, and that he approached the built environment pictorially. The three chapters study three distinct but related elements of his response to architecture. Chapter One focuses on Cole’s writings about public architecture, including the Washington Monument, the Ohio Statehouse, and an essay he called “Letter to the Publick on the Subject of Architecture.” These documents, most of them never before published, demonstrate a preoccupation with architecture as a force for harmony, unity, and permanence in a fractious society that sorely needed all three. Chapter Two studies Cole’s little known “house portraits”: paintings of the country houses of three patrons. These seemingly topographical views have been largely disregarded as regrettable concessions to financial necessity that have little to tell viewers about the concerns of an artist better known for grand allegories like The Course of Empire. However, considering them in relation to new evidence of his architectural thought shows these enigmatic images to be participants in a vibrant contemporary discourse about country houses as ways of civilizing and inscribing the wilderness with history and about the place of aristocracy in a republic. Chapter Three studies Cole’s extensive plans for an Italianate villa of his own that would put his study of architecture in general and the country house in particular into practice. While most of these designs were unexecuted due to his financial circumstances, they testify to his participation in this moment of national literal and metaphorical investment in country life. This context urges a rethinking of much of the oeuvre of “the father of the Hudson River School” and of the ideologies with which country life and its representations were fraught in the antebellum era. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures…………………………..………………………………………………………....ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….xi Introduction: The Painter-Architect in the Early Republic……………………………………..…1 Chapter One: “In Accordance with True Taste”: Cole’s Writings on Public Architecture………6 I. The Washington Monument…………………………………………………………......9 II. The Ohio Statehouse…………………………………………………………………..12 III. Cole’s “Letter to the Publick”………………………………………………………...26 Chapter Two: Thomas Cole and the House Portrait…………………………………………..…30 I. Painting the “Baronial Castle”: Featherston Park……………………………………....34 II. The Villa as Public Good: Monte Video…………………..……………………….…..51 III. Feudal Nostalgia: The Van Rensselaer Manor House…………………………..…....63 Chapter Three: Cedar Grove and the Villa Ideal……………………………………………….77 I. Artists’s Houses in America before Cole…………………………………………..…...80 II. From Thomson Place to Cedar Grove……….…………………………………..….....88 III. “A Sort of Italian Looking Thing”: Cole’s Designs for Cedar Grove…………..……..93 Conclusion: The Domesticated Landscape in America………….……………………………..104 Figures……………………………………………………………………………………....…..108 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………..180 Appendix A: Cole’s Writings on the Washington Monument….………………………..……193 Appendix B: The Correspondence of Thomas Cole and William Apthorp Adams on the Ohio Statehouse…………………………………………………….……196 Appendix C: “Letter to the Publick on the Subject of Architecture”……………………...…..220 i LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1 Palace on the Hudson in the Year 2500, T. Cole Architect, late 1830s or early 1840s. Pencil on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts 39.519 Fig. 2 The Course of Empire: Consummation, 1836. Oil on canvas, New-York Historical Society Fig. 3 The Architect’s Dream, 1840. Oil on canvas, Toledo Museum of Art. Fig. 4 Detail: Youth from The Voyage of Life, 1842. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art Fig. 5 A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch), 1839. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington Fig. 6 Sketch for the Ohio Statehouse, c. 1838. Chalk on panel (verso of Fig. 5) National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Fig. 7 Front Elevation for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Catskill, NY, c. 1839-40. Ink over pencil on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts 39.535 Fig. 8 Detail of The Return (Fig. 82), 1838. Oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection, National Gallery of Art Fig. 9 Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Plan of Washington (detail with Point A, “President’s house” and “Congress house” circled), 1887 facsimile of 1791 original. United States Coast and Geodedic Survey Office. [Reproduced in Savage, “Self-Made Monument”, p. 228] Fig. 10 Sketch for the Washington Monument, 1835. Pencil on paper, New York State Library, Cole Papers 4a.1 Fig. 11 The Course of Empire: Destruction, 1836. Oil on canvas, New-York Historical Society Fig. 12 The Course of Empire: Desolation, 1836. Oil on canvas, New-York Historical Society Fig. 13 Detail of Fig. 2, The Course of Empire: Consummation, 1836. Oil on canvas, New-York Historical Society Fig. 14 Second Design for the Washington Monument, late 1835 or earlier 1836. Ink on paper, New York State Library, Cole Papers 6.5 Fig. 15 Robert Mills, Sketch of Washington National Monument, c. 1840. Ink and watercolor, National Archives. [Reproduced in Savage, “Self-Made Monument”, 234] Fig. 16 John Russell Pope et al. The Jefferson Memorial, 1938-43. Washington, D.C. ii Fig. 17 First design for the Ohio Statehouse, 1838. Ink on paper, New York State Library, Cole Papers 2.8 Fig. 18 Undated early plan and elevation for the Ohio Statehouse. Ink on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts, 39.508 Fig. 19 Thomas Jefferson and Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Virginia State Capitol, Richmond, 1785. Fig. 20 Maison Carée, Nîmes, France. Circa 16 b.c.e. Fig. 21 Undated Statehouse elevation. Pencil on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts, 39.504a Fig. 22 Undated Statehouse elevation. Pencil on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts, 39.505 Fig. 23 Undated Statehouse perspective. Pencil and gray wash on paper, New York State Library, Cole Papers 8.1 Fig. 24 Alexander Jackson Davis, Plan by T. Cole, Esq. For the Capitol of Ohio (redrafted from Cole’s original submission, now lost), c. 1839. Watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper, Metropolitan Museum of Art Fig. 25 Alexander Jackson Davis, Plan by H. Walter, Esq. For the Capitol of Ohio (redrafted from original submission, now lost), c. 1839. Watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper, Metropolitan Museum of Art Fig. 26 Ammi Young and Thomas Silloway, Vermont State House, Montpelier, 1833. Fig. 27 Alexander Jackson Davis, Plan by M. Thompson, Esq. For the Capitol of Ohio (redrafted from original submission, now lost), c. 1839. Watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper, Metropolitan Museum of Art Fig. 28 William Apthorp Adams, after Thomas Cole, Plan approved by the Commissioners of the Ohio Statehouse, June 21, 1839. New York State Library, Cole Papers 2.9 Fig. 29 Thomas Cole et al., The Ohio Statehouse, Columbus. 1839-1861. Fig. 30 The Past , 1838. Oil on canvas, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College Fig. 31 The Present, 1838. Oil on canvas, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College. Fig. 32 Portage Falls on the Genesee River, 1839. Oil on canvas, Seward House Historic Museum [pending deaccession] Fig. 33 Detail of Fig. 32: Hornby Lodge iii Fig. 34 Hornby Lodge, 1839. Pencil on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts 39.337 Fig. 35 Peter Paul Rubens, Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, 1636. Oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, London Fig. 36 William Birch, “Montibello, the Seat of Genl. S. Smith, Maryland” in Country Seats of the United States of North America (Philadephia: William Birch, 1808). Fig. 37 View of the Featherstonhaugh Estate Near Duanesburg, New York, 1826. Oil on canvas, The Featherstonhaugh Trust. Fig. 38 The Woodchopper, Lake Featherstonhaugh, 1826. Oil on canvas, USC Fisher Museum of Art Fig. 39 Landscape, the Seat of Mr. Featherstonhaugh in the Distance, 1826. Oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Fig. 40 Lake with Dead Trees, 1825. Oil on canvas, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College Fig. 41 Anon., Carte-de-visite of George William Featherstonhaugh, ca. 1856. Albumen print, Minnesota Historical Society Fig. 42 Detail of The Woodchopper, Lake Featherstonhaugh (Fig. 38) Author photograph Fig. 43 Colen Campbell, “The Elevation of Richard Rooth Esqr. his House at Epsom in Surrey” from Vitruvius Britannicus, or the British Architect Vol. II (London: Colen Campbell, 1717), pl. 49. Fig. 44 The Seat of Mr. Featherstonhaugh in the Distance (1 of 2), 1825-6. Pen and ink over pencil on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts, 39.252.A Fig. 45 The Seat of Mr. Featherstonhaugh in the Distance (2 of 2), 1825-6. Pen and ink over pencil on paper, Detroit Institute of Arts, 39.252.B Fig.