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

Thomas Cole painted the final canvas of The Voyage of Life series in 1842. He called it Old Age. He was only thirty nine years old at the time but he already felt the weight of mortality pressing down on his chest like a stone.

The old man in the boat has no oar. The boat has no rudder. The allegorical vessel that carried him through his entire life has rotted away and stripped itself down to almost nothing. The lush landscapes of youth and the dramatic conflicts of manhood are gone. What remains is a quiet and desolate ocean under a turbulent sky that is just beginning to break apart and let in some light.

Cole was deeply religious and the light breaking through those clouds was his statement about faith. The angel hovering above the water is not decoration. It is a promise. But look at the old man himself. He is small and hunched and frail. The majesty of the other paintings in the series has been stripped away completely. All the drama is over. All that remains is surrender.

Cole painted this series twice. The first version hangs in Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute. The second version lives at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The second version is considered the definitive masterpiece. It is larger, more refined, and painted with the full confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was trying to say about the terrifying dignity of dying.

References

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

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

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