Thomas Cole's View of Fort Putnam

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2004 by Elise Effmann

American scenes are not destitute of historical and legendary
associations--the great struggle for freedom has sanctified many a spot,
and many a mountain, stream, and rock, has its legend, worthy of poet's
pen or the painter's pencil.
Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery" (1836) (1)

Only twenty-four years old and striving to establish himself as a painter in New York City, Thomas Cole traveled up the Hudson River during the late summer of 1825 with money provided by George W. Bruen (1795-1849), a New York merchant and patron of his work. Cole made drawings of the landscape from Cold Spring to Albany and back through Catskill with the intention of using these sketches as the basis for paintings that would both embody his visions of the picturesque and the sublime in the American landscape and demonstrate his talent in depicting the natural world. Some months after returning to New York City, Cole exhibited several of these pictures in William A. Colman's picture gallery and bookshop. Two landscapes of Cold Spring were sold, and three other landscapes resulting from this trip remained in the gallery.

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The circumstances surrounding the purchases of these three paintings have often been retold to form the legend of Cole's beginnings as an artist. (2) The earliest version of the story was written by the artist and writer William Dunlap (1766-1839) who published it under the pseudonym "An American" in the New-York Evening Post for November 22, 1825. (3) Subsequent accounts vary slightly in the details, but the events can roughly be summarized as follows. While visiting Colman's shop one day, John Trumbull (1756-1843), the elderly president of the American Academy of the Fine Arts in New York City, saw the three landscapes and was so taken with them that he was said to have exclaimed: "I am delighted, and at the same time mortified. This youth has done at once, and without instruction, what I cannot do after 50 years' practice." (4) He immediately purchased a view of the Kaaterskill Falls for twenty-five dollars and proceeded to tell Dunlap about the young artist's skill. Dunlap saw Trumbull's purchase and subsequently bought Lake with Dead Trees (Catskill), a scene in the Catskills (Pl. II). A third artist, Asher Brown Durand, at the time primarily known for his engravings, saw the works and purchased the remaining painting, View of Fort Putnam (Pls. I, Ia). By the middle of November, the three paintings were on exhibition at the American Academy of the Fine Arts, where they were much acclaimed. Reviewing Cole's contributions to the show, the New-York Review, and Atheneum Magazine noted in reference to the Kaaterskill Falls painting belonging to Trumbull:

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This picture would, of itself, place Mr. Cole among the most eminent
landscape painters, but his claim to that station is made out to the
perfect satisfaction of the connoisseur, when the varied and contrasted
excellencies of the three pictures ... are viewed at the same time. (5)

Cole's fame "spread like fire," as Durand was reported to have said, leading to profitable introductions to patrons. (6)

Until very recently only one of these three paintings had been identified: Lake with Dead Trees (Catskill) (Pl. II). Dunlap, the first owner, sold it early on for a modest profit to Philip Hone (1780-1851), a wealthy businessman, politician, and diarist. (7) The picture has been in the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio, since 1904. The painting owned by Trumbull, exhibited as Catterskill Upper Fall, Catskill Mountain, is now unlocated, but is known through a replica (Pl. III) commissioned by Daniel Wadsworth (1771-1848), a nephew-in-law of Trumbull. It is quite possible that View of Fort Putnam (Pls. I, Ia) remained with Durand throughout his life, for his son John (1822-1908) referred to "Mr. Cole's picture" in a letter written in 1849. (8) However, its whereabouts were unclear until it was recovered from a warehouse following a fire in the early 1990s. Darrel Sewell, then the Robert L. McNeil Jr. curator of American art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, initially identified the painting as an early work by Cole based on the signature and technical quality, and his attribution was later endorsed by the art historian and Cole authority Ellwood C. Parry III. (9)

The painting came to the museum in Philadelphia for study and conservation treatment. The canvas and paint required stabilization following minor water damage in the warehouse fire. Practically untouched for decades, the landscape was also obscured by discolored varnish and a heavy layer of grime. The painting is now the promised gift of its owner, Charlene Sussel, in honor of the museum's 125th anniversary.

Cole understood the conventions of his chosen genre from the outset, assimilating into his vision of the American landscape the concepts of the picturesque and the sublime from British landscape painting and its seventeenth-century Italian and French precursors. (10) The undulating forested hills recall those of the Hudson River valley. The rustic cottage, the grazing sheep, and the crumbling stone wall provide picturesque elements, while the sublime is evoked by dark gray storm clouds breaking the light into patches of bright sun and areas of deep shadow. The artist's desire to imbue his landscapes with a deeper significance is clear in his choice of symbolic motifs, some of which, such as the juxtaposition of the living and dead trees in the foreground, became standard elements in Cole's work.