Thomas Cole’s The Present

Thomas Cole, The Present, 1837, oil on canvas, 40 3/4 in x 61 5/8 in, Mead Art Museum at Amherst College.

Introduction

In the 1830s, America was expanding westward away from the Atlantic coast, transforming the natural environment into a land cultivated by humans. With the large-scale adoption of railroads in the 1830s, rapid industrial growth continued to spread further west. Having experienced the industrialization of London as a child, Thomas Cole, one of the most well-known American Landscape painters of the 19^th century, was acutely aware of the present danger of rapid expansion and industrialization happening in North America during the Jacksonian Era.¹ In 1838, after returning home from Europe where he studied Constable, Turner, and Claude, the old masters of landscape painting, Cole’s paintings transitioned from topographical landscapes to imagined landscapes which warned of the dangers that accompany civilization and industrialization.² Cole’s knowledge and imagination culminated in the five part series titled The Course of Empire depicts the rise and fall of an empire, warning of the threat of unchecked and expansive progress.³ 

Overview and Analysis

With the success of The Course of Empire, Cole was commissioned by Peter G. Stuyvesant, a prominent American landowner and philanthropist, to paint a set of paintings titled The Past and The Present.⁴ Using transparent glazes between layers of paint, Cole meticulously created two life-like, picturesque scenes depicting an allegory about civilization.⁵ In The Past, a thriving medieval civilization is seen hosting a jousting tournament on a sunny, spring day. In The Present, Cole depicts the ruins of this medieval castle at sunset during a fall day. Vegetation has taken root in the stone of the castle, and as the wind blows, leaves from the top of the tower flutter through the sky, scattered with pink clouds. The sunlight passes through the few remaining arches of the castle. Goats lay in the warm light under a leaning tree as the goat herd stands in a patch of sunlight. Cole positions elements essential to his cautionary tale directly in sunlight, hoping to shine light, literally and figuratively, on the idea that, by learning from the mistakes of past civilizations, Americans can delay the demise promised by the cyclic nature of civilization.

Sunlight floods the once magnificent castle, drawing the viewers’ attention to the sublime nature of the sun. The natural beauty and energy of the sun makes human existence seem powerless. Golden light emanates from behind the castle, highlighting the castle’s beauty despite it being only a trace of what once existed. As the sun sets directly behind the castle, light passes through the only still-standing arch illuminating the green vegetation that has grown attached to the stone. Cole uses sunlight to emphasize the beauty and power of nature in comparison to the human world. 

As the viewer follows the light through the remaining arch, in a patch of sunlight, three goats rest peacefully on the grass. The goats lay where humans stood in The Past, showing that nature is reclaiming the land once controlled by humans. With a closer look, the viewer becomes aware of additional goats standing in the light on the steps of the castle, eating the vegetation growing on the ruins. The goats stand where once stood the gate to the castle, separating the medieval castle from the natural world. While once guarding the flourishing medieval civilization from the uncivilized, natural world, this arch, now gateless, cannot stop the goats from entering. Cole purposefully places goats in the sunlight to suggest that nature is in the process of reclaiming the ruins of the human past. 

Despite the desolate state of the castle, The Present is not devoid of humans as one would expect. In a patch of sunlight stands a single man. This man, the herder responsible for the goats, looks directly at the ruins of the once vibrant castle. While the state of the castle suggests that humans and the natural world are at odds with one another, Cole uses the herder to imply that humans and the natural world can peacefully coexist. Cole suggests that when humans respect the sublime power of the natural world, the destruction seen by the ruins of the medieval castle can be delayed.⁶ The herder shows that humans are not in control of nature, but in nature’s presence. By choosing to position the herder in a patch of sunlight looking directly at the castle’s ruins, Cole emphasizes that harmony between humans and nature can be achieved when the power of the natural world is respected.

Finally, in the bottom left corner next to the goats, stands a tall, sturdy tree whose leaves are a golden yellow, illuminated by the sun. The color of the leaves establishes that this scene is taking place during the fall. Cole sets his scene at dusk on a fall day to show that while both day and the year are coming to an end, so is this story of human civilization. By depicting the same civilization over time in The Past and The Present, Cole uses the seasons and sun to show the cyclical nature of civilization. 

Looking closely at this tree, the viewer notices the slight lean of the tree, looking as if it has withstood the test of time. In fact, when looking at The Past, the viewer sees a large tree that takes up the left corner of the painting. With the perspective of the paintings being almost the same, with the only difference being that the viewer is positioned farther away in The Present than in The Past, both paintings illustrate the same tree, just many years apart. Despite the fact that the castle is in ruins, the tree stands tall, unscathed by the destruction that has destroyed the medieval castle. Cole uses this tree to emphasize that while the passage of time comes with destruction for human civilization, the natural world endures. 

Conclusion

While Cole painted The Past and The Present in response to westward expansion and industrialization occurring in the United States during the 19th century, Cole’s stark warning remains ever relevant today with the current climate crisis. Considering America’s persistent pursuit of its own self interests and blatant disregard for the natural world, the United States is headed for destruction if we are unwilling to change our ways of thinking. The Past and The Present reminds viewers today that the United States is not exempt from the cyclical nature of civilization, and that if we continue to dismiss not only the beauty, but power of the natural world, the destruction seen in The Present could be America in the near future.

Footnotes

1. Tim Barringer, “Thomas Cole’s Atlantic Crossing,” in Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings, by Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser and Tim Barringer (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018), 21. ↩︎
2. Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, and Jennifer Raab, Picturesque and Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance (Thomas Cole National Historic Site; Yale University Press, 2018), 42. ↩︎
3. William Truettner and Alan Wallach, eds., Thomas Cole: Landscape into History (Yale University Press; National Museum of American Art and Smithsonian Institution, 1994), 93.   ↩︎
4. Elizabeth Barker, Mead Art Museum at Amherst College Collection Guide (Amherst College Press, 2011), 116. ↩︎
5.  Lance Mayer and Gay Mayer, “Thomas Cole: ‘The Best Landscape Painter in the World,’” in American Painters on Technique: The Colonial Period to 1860 (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011), 187. ↩︎
6. Truettner and Wallach, Thomas Cole: Landscape into History, 93. ↩︎