Cole. Thomas - The Voyage of Life: Manhood (1842)

Thomas Cole painted the third canvas in The Voyage of Life series in 1842. He called it Manhood. He was thirty nine years old at the time but he had already absorbed enough grief and professional disappointment to paint the face of genuine crisis.

The young man from the earlier paintings is gone. A desperate adult clings to a barely functional boat on a dark and violent river. The guiding angel who once hovered peacefully overhead is now barely visible as a dim distant light in the upper corner of the canvas. The man is alone in the chaos. Gnarled trees claw at the sky overhead. Rocky rapids surge ahead with absolute indifference.

Cole fills this canvas with darkness and storm with an intention that goes far beyond allegory. He had already watched his beloved American wilderness get consumed by industry and expansion. He saw moral corruption spreading through the young country like rot in old wood. He painted the turbulent waters of Manhood as a mirror aimed directly at a nation hurtling forward without wisdom or caution.

The original series was commissioned by a banker named Samuel Ward who died before the paintings were finished. Cole completed them anyway and the series became the most celebrated American artwork of the nineteenth century. Millions of people saw reproductions in magazines and newspapers. The imagery of the desperate adult on the dark river burned itself into the national consciousness. It was a warning nobody wanted to hear but nobody could forget.

References

Parry, Ellwood C. The Art of Thomas Cole Ambition and Imagination. University of Delaware Press, 1988.

Powell, Earl A. Thomas Cole. Harry N. Abrams, 1990.

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