Your art history post for today: by Thomas Cole (1801-1848), “The Course of Empire: Destruction,” 1836, oil on canvas, 39 1/4 × 63 1/2 inches (99.7 × 161.3 cm), collection of The New York Historical.
#arthistory #painting #oilpainting
From the museum: ‘On August 30, 1836 the artist wrote to his friend and fellow artist Asher B. Durand "I have been engaged in Sacking & Burning a city ever since I saw you & am well nigh tired of such horrid work." The vainglorious city that Cole depicted in The Consummation of Empire has fallen to a savage enemy, and the critic for the New-York Mirror lauded Cole's critique of imperial rule, agreeing with the artist's depiction that "[s]uch is the merited downfall of all the empires which the earth has heretofore known." Instead of the statue of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, that kept watch over The Consummation of Empire, a headless colossal figure taken from the Louvre's Borghese Warrior witnesses the rapacious acts of the invading army. Cole was likely influenced by the English painter John Martin's panoramic scenes of apocalyptic disaster, and he no doubt knew that his depiction would bring to mind the terror and destruction wrought in New York by the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike the other paintings, here Cole's signature is audaciously large and carved in slashing letters, almost like an act of vandalism, on the pedestal of the ruined statue at the right.’
