Thomas Cole, 1836 - View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow - fine art print

Supplemental information by The Metropolitan Museum of Art (© - by The Metropolitan Museum of Art - The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Long known as "The Oxbow," this work is a masterpiece of American landscape painting, laden with possible interpretations. In the midst of painting "The Course of Empire" (New-York Historical Society), Cole mentioned in a letter dated March 2, 1836, to his patron Luman Reed that he was executing a large version of this subject expressly for exhibition and sale. The picture was shown at the National Academy of Design in 1836 as "View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm." Cole's interest in the subject probably dates from his 1829–32 trip to Europe, during which he made an exact tracing of the view published in Basil Hall's "Forty Etchings Made with the Camera Lucida in North America in 1827 and 1828." Hall criticized Americans' inattentiveness to their scenery, and Cole responded with a landscape that lauds the uniqueness of America by encompassing "a union of the picturesque, the sublime, and the magnificent." Although often ambiguous about the subjugation of the land, here the artist juxtaposes untamed wilderness and pastoral settlement to emphasize the possibilities of the national landscape, pointing to the future prospect of the American nation. Cole's unequivocal construction and composition of the scene, charged with moral significance, is reinforced by his depiction of himself in the middle distance, perched on a promontory painting the Oxbow. He is an American producing American art, in communion with American scenery. There are both sketchbook drawings with annotations and related oil sketches of this subject. Many other artists copied or imitated the painting.

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This more than 180 year-old piece of art View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow was painted by the artist Thomas Cole. The 180 year-old original of the painting measures the size: 51 1/2 x 76 in (130,8 x 193 cm). Oil on canvas was used by the painter as the technique for the painting. The piece of art belongs to the The Metropolitan Museum of Art's digital art collection. With courtesy of: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908 (license: public domain). In addition to that, the work of art has the creditline: Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908. On top of that, alignment of the digital reproduction is landscape and has a side ratio of 3 : 2, which implies that the length is 50% longer than the width. Thomas Cole was a male painter, whose art style can be attributed primarily to Romanticism. The North American artist was born in the year 1801 in Lancashire, England, United Kingdom, county and deceased at the age of 47 in the year 1848.

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