Thomas Cole's 'Voyage of Life' in the National Gallery of Art

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1997 by Earl A. Powell, III

In March 1839, following the success of his great series The Course of Empire (1834-1836; in the New-York Historical Society, New York City), Thomas Cole received his next important commission: to paint The Voyage of Life for Samuel Ward (1786-1839) who, like Cole's patron Luman Reed (1787-1836), had a gallery of paintings in his house in New York City. While The Course of Empire represented the emergence of Cole as a mature artist, The Voyage of Life was the creative enterprise that dominated his later career. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has the second version of this series; the first, completed in 1840, is in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art in Utica, New York. The relationship between Coles two series is interesting both historically and artistically.

Samuel Ward was a deeply religious man who had modeled his domestic gallery after Reed's, but unlike Reed, Ward did not intend that Cole's series be a course of moral instruction for the public. The theme was more personal than the romantic sentiment that had inspired The Course of Empire. The four pictures in The Voyage of Life - Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age - offered a simple and conventional allegorical message [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLS. I-IV OMITTED]. The pilgrim's journey through life concludes with the promise of eternal salvation. The series resembles both John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678) and the Biblical image of the river of life. In his later years Cole became a more conventionally devout Christian, and that point of view is revealed dearly in this series. He described his intentions in the important "List" of themes and subjects that he began in 1827 and continued for many years. There he conveyed his intent to paint an

Allegory of Human Life - a series. 1st - the source of a river - issuing from a cave & a child in a boat - with a guardian Angel steering - 2nd - The child become a youth is seen in the boat...

4 The river tumbles over rocks - a stormy scene the boat dashes among troubled waters...

5 View of a dark ocean - the boat with an old man just entering on it. Chaos and darkness spread before - but through an opening in the clouds a glorious city seen.(1)

By October 1839 Cole had begun work on Childhood and his hopes and enthusiasm for the success of the series were high. The next month he was crushed to learn that Ward had died, and he noted sadly, "There would seem almost a fatality in these commissions. Mr. Reed died without seeing his series completed. Mr. Ward died soon after his was commenced."(2) Nonetheless, Cole did complete the series, finishing the hast two pictures in November 1840 and arranging to exhibit all of them that year at the National Academy of Design in New York City.

Ward had wanted Cole to paint The Voyage of Life in the same style as The Course of Empire,(3) and it is interesting to compare the two series. The latter is more baroque and theatrical. It was conceived as a panorama of extravagant proportions, equal to the theory of the cycle of nations which inspired it. The solitary journey of the pilgrim in The Voyage of Life is more introspective and religious. The Course of Empire reflects the passage of time from early morning to evening in the same landscape, whereas The Voyage of Life follows a time sequence corresponding to the seasons of the year. Cole's description of the series is typical of the literary and religious inspiration that motivated him and he phrase it in quintessentially romantic language. Describing Manhood he evokes a scene that might well have been inspired by the poets:

Storm and cloud enshroud a rugged and dreary landscape. Bare, impending precipices rise in the lurid light. The swollen stream rushes furiously down a dark ravine, whirling and foaming in its wild career.(4)

The Voyage of Life was well received by the critics and public alike, and Cole wanted to continue exhibiting the series after the National Academy showing, but complications with the Ward family prevented this. However, he took the precaution of taking full-sized tracings of each picture and made oil copies of all the figures so that he could duplicate the series.(5)

In August 1841 Cole sailed for Europe, intending to paint another set of The Voyage of Life during his trip. By November of that year the opportunity was provided by George Washington Greene (1811-1883), the American consul in Rome and a Ward family cousin, who encouraged him to begin. By the spring of 1842 Cole had finished the set, and after his return from Europe he exhibited it in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. The series was engraved by James Smillie (1807-1885) after Cole's death, giving it the prestige and popular acclaim it retains today. In his funeral oration for Cole, William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) called The Voyage of Life "of simpler and less elaborate design than the Course of Empire, but more purely imaginative. The conception of the series is a perfect poem."(6)

1 The list is reprinted in full in Earl A. Powell, Thomas Cole (New York, 1990), pp. 131-138. The list is in a sketchbook of 1827 now in the Cole Papers at the New York State Library in Albany.