Thomas Cole and the Death of the Valley
Thomas Cole did not paint autumn leaves simply because the changing seasons looked pretty. He painted them because his world was being torn apart. It was 1837 and the Canajoharie and Catskill Railroad was cutting violently through his own backyard. Iron tracks were slicing up the untamed valley he loved. Steam engines were beginning to choke the crisp air with black smoke. View on the Catskill Early Autumn is an oil on canvas protest. It is a beautifully warm and glowing picture that hides a deeply bitter truth.
Look at the mother gathering flowers in the foreground. She is a symbol of a lost harmony with nature. She belongs to a quiet idyllic world that is already doomed. Relentless American industrial expansion was a monster that never slept. It ate ancient forests and redirected rivers without a single second thought. Cole hated this march of progress. He used every square inch of his wide canvas to scream about what was being stolen from them all.
Even the horses in the deep background know something is terribly wrong. They are running away in a panic. They are fleeing from an invisible steam train that you cannot see but can definitely feel rumbling beneath the dirt. Cole showed this masterpiece at the National Academy of Design in 1838. Most people probably just admired the bright oranges and soft reds. They probably missed the heavy warning entirely. This was not a celebration of nature. It was an obituary. The American landscape was dying and Cole wanted everyone to feel the grief.
References
Cole Thomas. View on the Catskill Early Autumn. 1837. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art New York.
Novak Barbara. Nature and Culture American Landscape and Painting 1825 to 1875. Oxford University Press New York 1995.