109. The Oxbow (View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm). Thomas Cole. 1836 CE Oil on a Canvas.

• Form
  • Actual view in Massachusetts
  • Landscape divided into two clearly contrasting areas: the Romantic landscape on the left and the Classical landscape on the right
  • On the right, man’s touch is light: cultivated fields, boats drifting down the river
• Function
  • Painted as a reply to a British book that alleged that Americans had destroyed a wilderness with industry.
  • Painted for an exhibit at the National Academy of Design; hence the unusually large size
• Context
  • Illustrates the nineteenth-century American belief in Manifest Destiny
  • Cole is the founder of the Hudson River School
  • Cole’s self-portrait can be seen in the foreground in a dense forest
  • The wild landscape includes broken trees and a storm: the sublime
  • Cole at the center of the composition, between the two worlds expressed in the painting; challenges Americans to be good stewards of the land.