“The Course of Empire”—art for our times.

[raccoon]

You gotta check this out.

Thomas Cole, an American painter of the Hudson River School, in 1836 completed a series of 5 paintings called “The Course of Empire.” Doing an Internet search on “Empire” several years ago I stumbled across his works.


http://web.sbu.edu/theology/bychkov/cole.html

[qnr]

1. Nice, thanks n/t

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

2. It's a fantastic series

There's also some incredible details -- for example, the boy on the bridge in The Pastoral State has just drawn a picture of a stick man (IIRC holding a sword) which marks the start of art as well as a foreshadowing of the violence to come. Again from memory (the pics aren't in a good enough resolution to be sure), the old man has just drawn a shape with his stick, signifying mathematic thought.