While Thomas Cole built a successful career painting the scenery of the Hudson River Valley, he aspired to imbue landscape with a higher purpose. As early as 1827 he conceived a grand cycle of paintings that would illustrate the rise and fall of a civilization, and a few years later he began sketching and developing his ideas. The resulting series charts the course of an imaginative empire as it appears in the midst of wilderness, expands into a glistening metropolis, and collapses into ruin. Cole¡¯s pessimistic allegory about doomed imperial ambition¡ªlikely intended as a warning about the fate of the United States¡ªdiffered from prevailing beliefs among his contemporaries that the young Republic would never fail. Title The Course of Empire The Consummation of Empire Creator Thomas Cole Date Created 1835-1836 Physical Dimensions 51 1/4 in. x 6 ft. 4 in. (130.2 x 193 cm) Type Painting Medium Oil on canvas Art Form Painting Object Number 1858.3 Credit Line New-York Historical Society, Gift of the New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts
