Lot Essay
RELATED LITERATURE:
L.L. Nobel, The Life and Works of Thomas Cole, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964, p. 186, 188, 189-194, 311
G. Rosenthal, ed., "Studies on Thomas Cole, An American Romanticist", The Baltimore Museum of Art Annual II, Baltimore, Maryland, 1967, p. 122, no. 17
H.S. Merritt, Thomas Cole, Rochester, New York, 1969, no. 36, illus.
M.B. Tymn, ed., Thomas Cole's Poetry, York, Pennsylvania, 1972, p. 26
E.C. Parry, III, Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire", A Study in Serial Imagery: A PHD Dissertation, New Haven, Connecticut, 1970, p. 210
M. Baigell, Thomas Cole, New York, 1981, p. 58-59, illus.
This work, executed circa 1838, is a preliminary sketch for the well known 1838 oil Dream of Arcadia which is in the collection of the Denver Art Museum. Several other versions of this theme exist and are in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum (1843) and the New York Historical Society (1838).
In his survey of Cole's life and works, Louis Legrand Noble discussed The Dream of Arcadia extensively:
As the honour of introducing the pastoral, after the order of Theocritus, into Roman literature, belongs to Virgil, so the same honour is due to Cole as the parent of true idyl, or pastoral painting in America.....The Dream of Arcadia is at once an illustration of the picture idyl, and a splendid specimen. Every thing in it ministers to one end-the expression of simple rural life in its most pleasurable flow. Earth and air, sounds and motions, the season, the very temper of the elements, and all living things, serve to gather the sentiments and toughts of the beholder into the sweetly running current of a joyous existence in the country. A dream, and a most delightful dream, of hearts beating healthily upon nature's breast, was in the poet's brain. To give his vision a palpable frame and dwelling on the earth; to pass this fine creation as a soul into a body, that it might have a substantial, outward being, for the delight of kindred minds, was the intention of the artist in this present work. (Nobel, p. 189)
L.L. Nobel, The Life and Works of Thomas Cole, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964, p. 186, 188, 189-194, 311
G. Rosenthal, ed., "Studies on Thomas Cole, An American Romanticist", The Baltimore Museum of Art Annual II, Baltimore, Maryland, 1967, p. 122, no. 17
H.S. Merritt, Thomas Cole, Rochester, New York, 1969, no. 36, illus.
M.B. Tymn, ed., Thomas Cole's Poetry, York, Pennsylvania, 1972, p. 26
E.C. Parry, III, Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire", A Study in Serial Imagery: A PHD Dissertation, New Haven, Connecticut, 1970, p. 210
M. Baigell, Thomas Cole, New York, 1981, p. 58-59, illus.
This work, executed circa 1838, is a preliminary sketch for the well known 1838 oil Dream of Arcadia which is in the collection of the Denver Art Museum. Several other versions of this theme exist and are in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum (1843) and the New York Historical Society (1838).
In his survey of Cole's life and works, Louis Legrand Noble discussed The Dream of Arcadia extensively:
As the honour of introducing the pastoral, after the order of Theocritus, into Roman literature, belongs to Virgil, so the same honour is due to Cole as the parent of true idyl, or pastoral painting in America.....The Dream of Arcadia is at once an illustration of the picture idyl, and a splendid specimen. Every thing in it ministers to one end-the expression of simple rural life in its most pleasurable flow. Earth and air, sounds and motions, the season, the very temper of the elements, and all living things, serve to gather the sentiments and toughts of the beholder into the sweetly running current of a joyous existence in the country. A dream, and a most delightful dream, of hearts beating healthily upon nature's breast, was in the poet's brain. To give his vision a palpable frame and dwelling on the earth; to pass this fine creation as a soul into a body, that it might have a substantial, outward being, for the delight of kindred minds, was the intention of the artist in this present work. (Nobel, p. 189)