View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after the Lightning Storm , commonly known as The Oxbow , is a seminal painting scenery by Thomas Cole, founder of Hudson River School. The painting depicts a romantic panorama of the Connecticut River Valley shortly after a lightning storm. This has been interpreted as a confrontation between the desert and civilization.
Video The Oxbow
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Between 1833 and 1836, American painter and putative "founder" of The Hudson River School, Thomas Cole, has worked hard in his series of paintings The Course of Empire . This job was commissioned by New York patron Luman Reed, who had met Cole in 1832, and both held a friendship largely based on Reed's generosity in buying Cole's paintings. Reed requested The Course of Empire to load no fewer than five historic composition paintings. Cole himself was pleased with such a project, but doubts began to emerge in late 1835. His work was slow and tiring, and Cole found great difficulty in painting the numbers. Reed began to realize that Cole became lonely and depressed, and suggested that he postpone work at The Course of Empire and paint something deeper in his element for the April 1836 opening of the National Academy of Design annual exhibition. Cole, in replying to Reed in a letter, stated that he felt obliged to finish the series because Reed was very generous in his support, and instead suggested that he finish the last painting in the series and present it at the exhibition. Reed, however, did not particularly like the idea, because he thought it might damage the opening of the series as a whole. Instead, he suggested that he paint a picture like the second completed painting in the series, The Pastoral State . It describes the peaceful setting that Reed thought "no one has ever produced a more pleasurable scene in a more enjoyable season." In response to a letter in March 1836, Cole agreed to accept Reed's suggestion and paint a picture for the exhibition, writing:
Luxury images seldom sold & amp; they usually take more time than view so I decided to paint one of the last ones. I have started the scenery from Mt. Holyoke - it's about the best scene I have in my sketchbook & amp; already famous - this is going to be a novel and I think it's effective - I can not find a subject very similar to the image & amp; time does not allow me to create it.
Cole also commented that he used a larger canvas, because he could not prepare a smaller framework in time for the exhibition, and besides felt compelled to make a statement with a painting that he would present.
Maps The Oxbow
Composition
The painting moves from the dark desert to the crumbling tree trunks on steep cliffs in the foreground covered with a hard rain cloud on the left to a landscape filled with light and peace, cultivated on the right, which borders the tranquility of the Connecticut River bending over. In returning to the landscape of painting, Cole is faced with a dichotomy of wild wilderness and land cultivated by humans. While other painters from Hudson River School will combine the two peacefully, Cole does not shy away from describing the two as contradictory and demonstrates how cultivation will destroy the wild, and as a result never met in the painting. On a hill in a distant background, logging in the forest can be observed, which seems to form Hebrew letters. It was first noticed by Matthew Baigell long after the landscape was painted. It reads as Noah (?????) When viewed upside down, as if from God's perspective, the word Shaddai is formed, "The Almighty." Cole gives himself a small self-portrait sitting on the rocks in the foreground with the horses.
Ownership
Cole sold the painting at an exhibition to Charles Nicoll Talbot (1802-1874), a merchant in Chinese trade. In 1838 he lent it to the Dunlap Benefit Fair, and then to the third annual exhibition of the Society of Artist Funds, held in New York in 1862. With his death in 1874, the painting was obtained from his property by Margaret Olivia. Slocum Sage, wife of Russell Sage. Olivia Sage was a famous philanthropist, and her transfer to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1908 would have seemed more natural. However, he may have been inspired by the same attitude in 1904 by Samuel P. Avery, Jr., who contributed The Titan's Goblet , one of Cole's famous paintings, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Furthermore, Olivia Sage's lawyer, Robert de Forest, is the secretary of the Supervisory Board of the Metropolitan Museum. The painting today is in the Metropolitan Art Museum.
Note
External links
- View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after Thunderstorm - The Oxbow; Thomas Cole (American, 1801-1848) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Oxbow: After the Church, after Cole, Flooded; Stephen Stephen (America, b) 1951) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- The American paradise: the school world of the Hudson River, the exhibit catalog of the Metropolitan Art Museum (fully available online as PDF), containing material about The Oxbow (see index)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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