Kaaterskill Falls (painting)

Kaaterskill Falls
Kaaterskill Falls, 1826
ArtistThomas Cole
Year1826
MediumOil on Canvas
Dimensions64.2 cm × 89.7 cm (25.25 in × 35.31 in)
LocationWadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Kaaterskill Falls is an 1826 oil-on-canvas painting by British-American painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School.[1] It depicts the Kaaterskill Falls in Upstate New York.

Artist's background

Main article: Thomas Cole

Tom Christopher wrote that “[Thomas] Cole’s greatest artistic asset proved to be his untutored eye.”[2] Cole emigrated to America with his family in the spring of 1819 at the age of eighteen.[3] As a child, his surroundings were of Lancashire, England, an area known to be an epicenter of Britain’s primarily industrial region. Because of this, Cole was granted an additional clarity of and sensitivity to the vibrancy of American landscapes awash with color, a stark contrast to the bleak and subdued landscapes of the country he left behind.[4]

History

The actual Kaaterskill Falls in upstate New York

The painting was commissioned by Daniel Wadsworth in 1826. He bequeathed it to the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1848; it remains in its possession.[1]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b "Kaaterskill Falls". Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Retrieved August 18, 2020.
  2. ^ Christopher, “Living Off the Landscape,” 1.
  3. ^ Noble, The Life and Works of Thomas Cole, 6.
  4. ^ Great Northern Catskills of Greene County. “Hudson River School of Art,” 1.

Works cited

  • Christopher, Tom. "Living Off the Landscape: How Thomas Cole and Frederick Church made Themselves at Home in the Hudson River Valley." Humanities 30, no. 4 (2009):6-11.
  • Noble, Luis Legrand. The Life and Works of Thomas Cole. Edited by Elliot S. Vesell Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964.
  • Great Northern Catskills of Greene County. “Hudson River School of Art”. http://www.greatnortherncatskills.com/arts-culture/hudson-river-school-art.