Landscape

Thomas Cole

1825

Oil on canvas

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A pastoral landscape painting depicts a boy with an axe in the foreground and two figures resting by a stream in the middle ground, with rolling hills and trees in the background. A pastoral landscape painting depicts a boy with an axe in the foreground and two figures resting by a stream in the middle ground, with rolling hills and trees in the background. Thomas Cole, born in England, came to America in 1818 and soon was depicting the beauty and majesty of the American landscape. In this scene, he portrays a community of frontier people living in a valley, probably in upstate New York. Their attempt to tame the wilderness foreshadows similar pioneering activities in Minnesota a quarter century later. Gallery Not on View Bequest of Mrs. Kate L. Dunwoody