''View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm'', commonly known as ''The Oxbow'', is a seminal landscape
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
by
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...
, founder of the
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...
. The painting depicts a Romantic panorama of the Connecticut River Valley just after a thunderstorm. It has been interpreted as a confrontation between wilderness and civilization.
Background
Between 1833 and 1836, American painter and putative "founder" of ''The Hudson River School,'' Thomas Cole, had been hard at work on his series of paintings ''
The Course of Empire''. The work was commissioned by New York patron
Luman Reed
Luman Reed (1787–1836) was a successful American merchant and an important patron of the arts. His support for the painters George Whiting Flagg and Thomas Cole were particularly significant contributions to the development of American painting ...
, who had met Cole in 1832, and the two held a friendship largely based on Reed's generosity in buying Cole's paintings. Reed requested ''The Course of Empire'' to comprise no less than five paintings of a historic composition. Cole himself was excited by such a project, but doubt began to set in by the end of 1835. The work was slow and laborious, and Cole found great difficulty in painting the figures. Reed had begun to notice Cole was becoming lonely and depressed, and suggested that he suspend work on ''The Course of Empire'' and paint something that was more in his element for the April 1836 opening of the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
's annual exhibition. Cole, in replying to Reed in a letter, stated that he felt obliged to finish the series as Reed had been so generous in his support, and instead suggested that he simply complete the last painting in the series and display that at the exhibition. Reed however, did not really like the idea, as he thought it might spoil the unveiling of the series as a whole. He suggested instead that he paint a picture much like the already completed second painting in the series, ''The Pastoral State''. This depicted a peaceful setting which Reed thought "no man ever produced a more pleasing landscape in a more pleasing season." Responding in a letter in March 1836, Cole agreed to take Reed's advice and paint a picture for the exhibition, writing:
[Roque, Oswaldo Rodriguez (1982). ''"The Oxbow" by Thomas Cole: Iconography of an American Landscape Painting''. Metropolitan Museum Journal. pp. 63–7.]
Fancy pictures seldom sell & they generally take more time than views so I have determined to paint one of the latter. I have already commenced a view from Mt. Holyoke—it is about the finest scene I have in my sketchbook & is well known—it will be novel and I think effective—I could not find a subject very similar to your second picture & time would not allow me to invent one.
Cole also comments that he used a larger canvas, as he was not able to ready a smaller frame in time for the exhibition, and moreover felt compelled to make a statement with the one painting he was to present.
[
]
Composition
The painting moves from a dark wilderness with shattered tree trunks on rugged cliffs in the foreground covered with violent rain clouds on the left to a light-filled and peaceful, cultivated landscape on the right, which borders the tranquility of the bending Connecticut River. The view Cole sought to paint was a particularly difficult one, as its panoramic breadth extended beyond the width of typical landscape paintings of the period. To solve this problem, Cole stitched together two separate views from Mt. Holyoke, creating a synthetic, rather than a faithful, image of the scene. On the hill in the far background, logging scars in the forest can be observed, which appear to form Hebrew letters
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewis ...
. This was first noticed by Matthew Baigell long after the landscape was painted. It reads as Noah () If viewed upside down, as if from God's perspective, the word '' Shaddai'' is formed, "The Almighty." Cole gives himself a tiny self-portrait sitting on the rocks in the foreground with his easel.
Ownership
Cole sold the painting at the exhibition to Charles Nicoll Talbot (1802–1874), merchant in the China trade. In 1838 he lent it to the Dunlap Benefit Exhibition, and later to the third annual exhibition of the Artists' Fund Society, which was held in New York in 1862. With his death in 1874, the painting was acquired from his estate by Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage
Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, known as Olivia Sage (September 8, 1828 – November 4, 1918), was an American philanthropist known for her contributions to education and progressive causes. In 1869 she became the second wife of robber baron Russel ...
, wife of Russell Sage
Russell Risley Sage (August 4, 1816 – July 22, 1906) was an American financier, railroad executive and Whig politician from New York. As a frequent partner of Jay Gould in various transactions, he amassed a fortune. Olivia Slocum Sage, his se ...
. Olivia Sage was a known philanthropist, and her transfer of ''The Oxbow'' to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in 1908 would seem rather natural. However, she may have been inspired by a similar gesture in 1904 by Samuel P. Avery, Jr., who donated '' The Titan's Goblet'', another of Cole's well-known paintings, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Furthermore, Olivia Sage's attorney, Robert W. DeForest, was a secretary on the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum. The painting today resides in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.[Parry III, Ellwood C (2003). ''Overlooking the Oxbow: Thomas Cole's "View from Mount Holyoke" Revisited''. American Art Journal. Volume 34, pp. 6–61.]
Notes
External links
''View_from_Mount_Holyoke,_Northampton,_Massachusetts,_after_a_Thunderstorm—The_Oxbow;_Thomas_Cole
_(American,_1801–1848)''.html" ;"title="Thomas Cole">''View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow; Thomas Cole
(American, 1801–1848)''">Thomas Cole">''View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow; Thomas Cole
(American, 1801–1848)''at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
''The Oxbow: After Church, after Cole, Flooded;
(American, b. 1951)''">Stephen Hannock
(American, b. 1951)''at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
''American paradise: The World of the Hudson River School''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on ''The Oxbow'' (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oxbow
1836 paintings
Hudson River School paintings
Paintings by Thomas Cole
Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Water in art