Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole was an American artist, regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that prospered in the mid-19th century. Cole's work was known for its realistic and detailed depiction of American landscape and wilderness, which feature themes of romanticism and naturalism. Cole was primarily a painter of landscapes, but he also painted allegorical works. The most famous of these are the five-part series, The Course of Empire, which depict the same landscape over generations—and the four-part The Voyage of Life. Among his other famous works are the Oxbow (1836), the Notch of the White Mountains, Daniel Boone at His cabin at the Great Osage Lake, and Lake with Dead Trees (1825). He also painted The Garden of Eden (1828), with plentiful detail of Adam and Eve living amid waterfalls, colorful plants, and deer.

Thomas Cole influenced his artistic peers, especially Asher B. Durand and Frederic Edwin Church, who studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846.