The Spirit Of The Wilderness

Tomas Cole,arguably the greatest American landscape artist of his generation.He was born in Northern England during the Industrial Revolution.He immigrated to the United States with his parents when he was young.He visited England and Italy several times in order to learn landscape painting.His innovations inspired a new generation of American landscape painters.Cole,who founded the National Academy of Design and later the Hudson River School,had a major influence on the development of American art.The United States in the 19 th century was in the midst of a period of national consciousness.Based on landscape painting,the Thomas Cole transformed the unique American wilderness landscape into the source of American history,helped America find a way out of European culture.Cole’s work brought out his own vision of America and inspired other artists to explore the American continent,eventually liberating American painting from European and British traditions.This article will expound the “Wilderness” spirit in Cole’s works from four aspects.First,it discusses the formation and characteristics of European landscape painting,combining the influence of European and British painters in the same period on Cole’s choice of painting subjects and application of techniques.Secondly,it discusses the realistic foundation of the concept of“Wilderness” to be popular in the United States.Explore the influence of Romanticism,transcendentalism,Religious Thought and social development on the prevalence of the concept of “Wilderness” in 19 th century American society and its influence on Cole’s painting ideas.To study the development of the concept of“Wilderness” in the United States and its importance to the construction of American culture and national spirit.Finally,through the specific analysis of his works to sum up his description of the American wilderness landscape characteristics,contrast classical pastoral landscape painting to show the wilderness pattern in Cole’s works and the “Wilderness” spirit contained therein.As a representative of American landscape painting,Cole’s depiction of wilderness provided a cultural link to nineteenth-century America.His work catered to the changes of 19th-century American society and the needs of American nation-building,and made Cole’s paintings shine in the American art world.But because of the times and limitations,the Americanness in Cole’s works was complex and incomplete.His work does not simply imitate European and English style,but also did not completely abandon the color and painting concept of European classicism and Picturesque.In his later years,Cole believed in religion and saw the wilderness as a manifestation of God’s will.He lived out his life in worship and awe of nature.