عنوان

Thomas Cole's The Clove, Catskills:

Number

TLpq2408566269

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Thomas Cole's The Clove, Catskills:

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Quituisaca, Michael

Title Proper by Another Author

A Native "Past" for a Sustainable Future

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Elder, Nika

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

American University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2020

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

50

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

M.A.

Body granting the degree

American University

Text preceding or following the note

2020

Text of Note

From the beginning of his career, Thomas Cole was known for his unique vision and appreciation of the American wilderness. His early paintings of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York gained critical praise for their embrace of the wild elements of nature and rejection of the industrialization that came to define the region in the early 19th century. The Clove, Catskills exhibits these characteristics. In this work, Cole depicted the Kaaterskill Clove - a popular gorge and tourist destination - as a remote and wild site, absent of any markers of tourism or the tanning factories that were rampantly spreading through the mountains at the time. Because Cole depicts the Clove as uncultivated and wild, scholars have read this work as emblematic of his anti-industrial sentiments. The discovery of the pentimento of a Native American figure in the composition - made visible after a cleaning in 1964 - has served to reinforce this narrative; for example, scholars have interpreted this figure as a ghostly reminder of the region before industrialization and white settlement. This thesis, by contrast, interprets this work in light of Cole's interest in Native American history. By drawing on the artist's own letters and the native history of the region, I argue that the painting represents Kaaterskill Clove as a self-sufficient ecosystem, as the Mohican and Esopus would have seen it. In his attempt to envision a sustainable future for the region, Cole inadvertently adopted, even appropriated, a Native American perspective on nature. The painting thus offers a vision of the future for the Catskill region-one where resources are sourced in a sustainable manner, in line with Native American philosophy.

19th century

Art history

Catskill Mountains

Enviromentalism

Landscapes

Thomas Cole

Elder, Nika

Quituisaca, Michael

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y