Thomas Cole began the Hudson River School of landscape painting and was one of the most admired artists in mid-19th century America. This engraving is from his famous series of prints engraved by James Smilie, a leading etching master. (FLG)
While primarily a landscape artist, Cole (1801-1848) spent considerable time on this religious allegory. He painted two sets of this series of four images showing the religious journey of Everyman through the River of Life: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. The second set was painted to assure his access to the paintings. After his death, these were engraved and the prints became very popular during the Third Great Awakening in America, which started in the late 1850s and extended to the early 20th century.
Cole's writing on The Voyage of Life: Childhood:
A stream is seen issuing from a deep cavern, in the side of a craggy and precipitous mountain, whose summit is hidden in clouds. From out the cave glides a Boat, whose golden prow and sides are sculptured into figures of the Hours: steered by an Angelic Form, and laden with buds and flowers, it bears a laughing Infant, the Voyager whose varied course the artist has attempted to delineate. On either hand the banks of the stream are clothed in luxuriant herbage and flowers. The rising sun bathes the mountains and the flowery banks in rosy light. The dark cavern is emblematic of our earthly origin, and the mysterious Past. The Boat, composed of Figures of the Hours, images the thought, that we are borne on the hours down the Stream of Life. The Boat identifies the subject in each picture. The rosy light of the morning, the luxuriant flowers and plants, are emblems of the joyousness of early life. The close banks, and the limited scope of the scene, indicate the narrow experience of Childhood, and the nature of its pleasures and desires. The Egyptian Lotus in the foreground of the picture is symbolical of Human Life. Joyousness and wonder are the characteristic emotions of childhood. (quoted from Franklin Kelly, et al., American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Collections of the National Gallery of Art, 1996, p 123 (https://bit.ly/3rKghd8).
To take a tour of each journey see: http://bit.ly/3uEr4bJ
- Edition: Original
- Subject Matter: Landscape – mountain
- Inventory Number: 2014.1.148
- Collections: Sacred World Art Collection