American University Thesis and Dissertation Template for PC 2016
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THOMAS COLE’S THE CLOVE, CATSKILLS: A NATIVE “PAST” FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE By Michael Quituisaca Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts In Art History Chair: Nika Elder, Ph.D. Ying-Chen Peng, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences May 4, 2020 Date 2020 American University Washington, D.C. 20017 © COPYRIGHT by Michael Quituisaca 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For David THOMAS COLE’S THE CLOVE, CATSKILLS: A NATIVE “PAST” FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE BY Michael Quituisaca ABSTRACT From the beginning of his career, Thomas Cole was known for his unique vision and appreciation of the American wilderness. His early paintings of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York gained critical praise for their embrace of the wild elements of nature and rejection of the industrialization that came to define the region in the early 19th century. The Clove, Catskills exhibits these characteristics. In this work, Cole depicted the Kaaterskill Clove – a popular gorge and tourist destination – as a remote and wild site, absent of any markers of tourism or the tanning factories that were rampantly spreading through the mountains at the time. Because Cole depicts the Clove as uncultivated and wild, scholars have read this work as emblematic of his anti-industrial sentiments. The discovery of the pentimento of a Native American figure in the composition – made visible after a cleaning in 1964 – has served to reinforce this narrative; for example, scholars have interpreted this figure as a ghostly reminder of the region before industrialization and white settlement. This thesis, by contrast, interprets this work in light of Cole’s interest in Native American history. By drawing on the artist’s own letters and the native history of the region, I argue that the painting represents Kaaterskill Clove as a self-sufficient ecosystem, as the Mohican and Esopus would have seen it. In his attempt to envision a sustainable future for the region, Cole inadvertently adopted, even appropriated, a Native American perspective on nature. The painting thus offers a vision of the future for the Catskill region—one where resources are sourced in a sustainable manner, in line with Native American philosophy. i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis is indebted to my time as a Cole Fellow at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and getting the opportunity to work support on the exhibition Picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Transatlantic Inheritance in 2018. The Clove, Catskills was one of a select group of Cole paintings chosen for the exhibition and was subsequently my first experience with it. Appropriately, it was in the gallery of Thomas Cole’s reconstructed studio in the Catskills where the ideas expressed in this thesis began growing. The staff at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site were paramount during this project’s beginnings. I thank Director Betsy Jacks and curator Kate Menconeri for allowing me access to the Ellwood Parry Archive at the site, as well as their for mentorship. Also, I am thankful for 2018-2019 Cole Fellow Peter Fedoryk’s work towards transcribing Thomas Cole’s journals and providing me with the journal entries that proved essential to this thesis. Jonathan Palmer at the Vedder Library in Coxsackie, New York also helped with my primary research, and I am grateful for his guidance and friendship. Keith Gervase at The New Britain Museum of American Art also deserves thanks for giving me access to The Clove, Catskills’ object file and answering questions that arose from it. I owe the completion of this thesis to the continued support and guidance from the professors of Art History at American University throughout this process. I am especially grateful to Dr. Nika Elder for providing her expertise and encouragement, especially during the last leg of this project when the COVID-19 pandemic threatened this project’s completion. Her fortitude, as well as that of the entire department staff, provided a guiding light through uncertain times. It has been an honor to work under this dedicated team. Lastly, words cannot express the gratitude I have for the friends that I have made during my time at AU. Their encouragement meant more than they will ever know, and I credit them for ii helping through some of the most difficult challenges that emerged during this process. I am thankful for Taylor Curry, Sarah Froonjian, Shereka Mosley, Claire Sandberg, and Abby Swaringam for their friendship, and a special thanks to David Quituisaca and Cynthia Hodge- Thorne for being the greatest support system that any aspiring scholar could ever ask for. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 THE CLOVE, CATSKILLS, AND A NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE ON NATURE ................................................................................. 7 CHAPTER 2 THE CLOVE, CATSKILLS AS A VISION OF THE FUTURE ................22 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................36 ILLUSTRATIONS....................................................................................................................38 BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................................39 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. John Rubens Smith, Catskill Mountain House, 1830. Aquatint with hand-color on paper. ............................................................................................................................38 Figure 2. Thomas Cole, The Clove, Catskills, 1827. Oil on canvas. ...........................................38 Figure 3. Guy Johnson’s Map of the Six Nations, 1771. ............................................................38 Figure 4. Detail of The Clove, Catskills. The colored outline of a Native American figure. ........38 Figure 5. Thomas Cole, Kaaterskill Falls, 1826. Oil on canvas. Wadsworth Atheneum. ............38 Figure 6. Thomas Cole, The Falls of Kaaterskill, 1826. Oil on canvas. .....................................38 Figure 7. Thomas Cole, Stony Gap, Kaaterskill Clove, 1826-27. Oil on canvas. ........................38 v INTRODUCTION By 1827, Thomas Cole (1801-1848) had already established his reputation as a young phenom. The landscape paintings he presented in the inaugural show of the National Academy of Design in New York City the year prior were lauded for their unique embrace of the American wilderness. Where other painters had pictured the Northeast in a pastoral and domesticated way, Cole presented it as teeming with life, paying special attention to the components of nature: the various species of trees and foliage, cloud formations, mountains and weather in the region.1 The Clove, Catskills (1827) is one such painting. Cole’s imagined depiction of the Kaaterskill Clove—a popular nickname given to the gorge between High Peak, Roundtop, and South Mountain in the Catskills of New York—is absent of any trace of the development and industry that carved through the region in the early-19th century. The Clove, Catskills presents the popular gorge as remote, bountiful, and wild. The viewing platforms and trail markers that made this site accessible to 19th century tourists are substituted with jagged rocks and branches, a precipitous drop, and a passing thunderstorm. However, the discovery of the pentimento of a Native American figure in the composition–made visible from a cleaning in 1964-signals Cole’s awareness that despite these lands being wild, they were not uninhabited. The discovery of this pentimento invites an examination of Cole and his understanding of the Native American history of this region. While this painting was one of Cole’s earliest depictions of the Kaaterskill Clove—a subject to which he returned repeatedly—his erasure of a Native American figure from the composition came at a time when indigenous people were on Cole’s mind, appearing in his Last of the Mohican series of the same year and in paintings one 1 Kornhauser, Elizabeth M. “Manifesto for an American Sublime: Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow” in Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings. Exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018): 83. 1 year prior. Indeed, Cole’s journal entries reveal his research into uncovering the native names of the Catskills and his success in finding that of the Kaaterskill Falls. This information was not easily attainable, being buried under centuries of complex land deeds between the Mohican and Esopus tribes of the Catskills and early Dutch settlers. That he eventually found the native name of Kaaterskill Falls speaks to an incredible amount of research on Cole’s part. This desire to learn about the region’s history came from a love for the mountains that awoke in him from his first visit as a young man, right before he emerged onto the New York City art scene. Cole’s ability to push past the boundaries of conventional picturesque landscape depiction was the product of his informal development as a painter. Born in 1801 in Bolton-le- Moors, England, Cole’s only training in the arts would be as an engraver’s assistant.