1838
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, After a Storm is a 1838 unspecified by Thomas Cole, a Hudson River School Movement work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a tall mountain rising behind a lake, its slopes covered in bright red and gold trees after a storm. Cole painted this scene in his studio, not outdoors. He changed the season from summer to autumn because he thought American fall colors were the most beautiful in the world. The storm clouds add drama, but the sunlight breaking through suggests hope. If you like this, look up *america, american* for more paintings of wild landscapes.
Championing the American wilderness, Cole declared, "We are still in Eden," in his Essay on American Scenery, published two years before he painted this view of the Adirondacks. The artist sketched the scene in early summer, but when he created the painting in his studio, he rendered it in a dramatic blaze of fall colors. Such a choice likely had nationalistic overtones; he once proclaimed that autumn was "one season where the American forest surpasses all the world in gorgeousness." Cole included two Indigenous men in the painting’s right foreground foliage. At this time, the Adirondacks…
Nicknamed "Schroon Mountain" by the artist, the peak's official name is Hoffman Mountain.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Thomas Cole (February 1, 1801 – February 11, 1848) was an Anglo-American artist who founded the Hudson River School art movement.
See the richer artist page
