In today’s episode we’re looking at “Childhood” by Thomas Cole. It’s the first of a series of enormous paintings he did called “The Voyage of Life.”
We’ll find out how Cole used this series to push the boundaries of landscape painting from just pretty pictures to something much more meaningful. And we’ll learn why the Gallery’s version isn’t the original!
If you want to zoom in and pan around, you can find it here on the Gallery’s website.
SHOW NOTES (TRANSCRIPT BELOW)
“A Long Look” themes are “Easy” by Ron Gelinas https://youtu.be/2QGe6skVzSs and “At the Cafe with You” by Onion All Stars https://pixabay.com/users/onion_all_stars-33331904/
Episode music:
“Scenes from Childhood,” Op. 15, Robert Schumman https://musopen.org/music/2326-scenes-from-childhood-op-15/
“His Last Share of the Stars” by Doctor Turtle https://doctorturtle.bandcamp.com/album/free-turtle-archive-everything-cc-by-by-turtle
Artwork information
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.52450.html
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/cole-the-voyage-of-life-childhood.html
Thomas Cole information
https://thomascole.org/biography-of-thomas-cole/
https://thomascole.org/wp-content/uploads/FINAL-PDF-for-Website-2022.pdf
Thomas Cole National Historic Site
https://thomascole.org/
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to A Long Look! I’m your host, Karen Jackson
Did you know most people spend only a few seconds looking at works of art? But what happens if you slow down and take a long look? Join me while I take you thru the experience of what I see and discover while looking at art for minutes instead of seconds. Then I’ll share the history, mystery, or controversy behind it!
Ready? Then let’s head to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC
MUSIC
Today I’m looking at The Voyage of Life: Childhood by Thomas Cole. If you want to follow along, you can find it at alonglookpodcast.com/child. When you get there, just click on the image to zoom in and pan around!
So what do you first notice?
A chubby baby sits on a bed of pink and white flowers in an amber-colored boat with fistfuls of blossoms in his upraised hands. An angel in a white robe stands behind him with one hand resting on the tiller, steering them down a glassy narrow river. A glowing starburst hovers over the angel’s head and translucent wings extend straight back from its shoulders.
They are both pale-skinned and blond and face our right. The side of the boat is carved with a mass of figures, some with wings, who reach forward toward another angel rising to form the prow. Her long wings point straight back as she raises an hourglass high in her outstretched hands.
The little boat emerges on our left from a tall dark cave at the base of craggy mountains that loom over the travelers and us. Warm sunrise coming from the right paints their jagged faces in soft tones of mauve and pink and they get hazier as they march into the distance. The angel and that kid look so vulnerable at the foot of these massive peaks!
They drift along the lower half of the scene between white lotus and daffodil-yellow flowers bordering the water closest to us and a higher, chocolate-brown riverbank that runs from the cave mouth to the right edge.
The dark water reflects a riot of plum-purple, pumpkin-orange, rose-red, cornflower-blue, and raspberry-pink flowers mixed with leafy sage-green plants that burst along the riverbank. Celery and moss-green growth carpets a few boulders on either side of the cave and the ground stretching back from the river. The growth fades to hazy dusty pink as it recedes towards the horizon, which is lit by a golden glow.
Thick shell-pink and grey clouds hovering over the mountains on the left give way to a pale blue sky above the misty plain on the right.
This oil painting is really big, about 6 ft. wide by 4 feet tall. It’s hung so we’re on eye-level with the boat and it almost fills the width of the wall. It’s one of four paintings displayed in an octagonal forest-green room that form a series called “The Voyage of Life.” “Childhood” is the first.
MUSIC
Thomas Cole was born in 1801 in England and immigrated with his family to the US in 1818. They settled in Philadelphia and later moved to Ohio where he learned some of the basics of painting from a portrait painter. But he also taught himself a lot by experimenting with making detailed drawings from nature.
He moved to Philadelphia in his early twenties to study at the renowned Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and afterwards moved to New York. He began exploring and sketching in the Hudson River and Catskill mountains north of the city and fell in love with the area.
Things began to go pretty well for him. His work inspired by those sketching trips was getting snapped up by prominent collectors who just loved his grand, dramatic landscapes of the region and commissioned him for their own works.
After spending a few years in England, France, and Italy studying and working, Cole settled in the town of Catskill, renting a small building on a farm called Cedar Grove for his studio. He liked it so much he married his landlord’s niece, Maria Bartow and had 5 children!
His reputation really took off and he kept churning out landscapes for wealthy clients but believed they could so much more than decoration. He believed Nature could be used to teach Christian morals that would help people navigate life. He wrote in his journal, “That the true + the beautiful are in Nature + Art are one + inseparable, I have long been convinced…”
So, he came up with an idea for a series [1836] that would tell the story of an ordinary man’s voyage through life. He described it as an allegory that could make, as he said, “a strong moral and religious impression.” He showed the concept to a wealthy banker, philanthropist and collector named Samuel Ward who agreed to commission it.
The man starts off as this happy baby, taking in the beautiful world opening up around him. The second painting is “Youth” where the kid is now a young man and full of optimism, literally seeing castles in the sky. His angel has disembarked and waves at him from the riverbank. The third painting has our intrepid voyager in middle age. His boat’s kind of beat up, surrounded by storms, jagged rocks and churning water. He’s on his knees, praying desperately for help. And finally in the last scene he drifts onto calm ocean waters. He’s old with white hair and beard but his angel is back leading him to golden clouds parting ahead of him.
The metaphor of life as a river voyage is an old one and Cole thought it could communicate the idea that as people move through life and face more and more challenges it’ll be faith that gets them through and rewards them at the end.
MUSIC
Cole got caught in his own rough waters, when his patron Samaul Ward died just a few months after commissioning the work! As a father of a large family he got kind of nervous about whether or not the commission would get canceled but fortunately, Ward’s son assured him the job was still on.
But then he had to fight with the family’s lawyer about whether he’d be able to exhibit the paintings in public, which Sam Sr. had agreed to. To be honest, it would be good marketing for Cole and would earn him some money. But he also said it would honor the memory of Sam Sr. and he really believed the public would benefit from its moral message and felt strongly they should be able to see it.
A lot of the fight was about money. The lawyer wanted a share of any profits of the exhibition which Cole refused. Again, he’s a small businessman with a large family, trying to not get ripped off!
He also had a really emotional attachment to these paintings. He’d spent years coming up with the concept, finding a patron who’d pay for them and then actually painting the things. And he thought they were his best work so far.
He wrote to Sam Jr., pleading with him to understand. He said, “Pictures are the children of the artist–his interest in them never ceases–he watches them anxiously long after they have left his easel–if he thinks they are worthy and they happen to be placed in honorable situations he rejoices–if they are thrust into obscure corners he is grieved–he has a part in them that money cannot purchase nor distance destroy.”
Fortunately, he finally got permission and the series was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in NY.
But he was still so anxious about what would happen to them after turning them over the family, he got his nephew to help him make tracings and rough copies so he could reproduce them.
The Wards finally took possession after the exhibition and it turns out Cole’s concerns were justified. They never even hung them! He told a friend after visiting the family, “…the pictures were still lying on the floor of the gallery unseen, or if seen–seen to great disadvantage.” So much for an honorable situation!
So Cole made his copies while on a trip to Rome the following year and eventually sold the new set to George Shoenberger, a wealthy Cincinnati businessman and this is what you see at the Gallery! The original set ended up at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY.
BTW, Cole’s home at Cedar Grove was turned into a museum! The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill NY overlooks the stunning Catskill mountains and would make a great addition to a leaf-peeping trip!
OUTRO:
I hope you’ll try out a long look on your next museum visit! Just take a little time and let the art reveal itself.
You can find links to today’s information in the show notes at alonglookpodcast.com and in most podcast apps.
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Thanks for joining me!
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