Thomas Cole
In 1825 Thomas Cole made his first trip up the Hudson River to the Catskill Mountains, finding the subject with which he secured his reputation as a great painter of the American landscape. Cole’s journey coincided with the growth of tourism and trade in the region, and he blazed a trail for other Hudson River School painters who portrayed this landscape as an American Eden.
How does scale help to tell a story?
Cole took the narrative for this painting from Prometheus Bound, the classical tragedy. Prometheus was a Titan, a race of immortal giants. Jupiter charged him to create human beings, whom he fashioned out of mud and water in the image of the gods. Prometheus then stole fire from the gods to help the humans. The theft angered Jupiter, who had Prometheus chained to a rock; he was condemned to have his liver devoured by a vulture, only to have it regrow and be devoured again the next day.
Museum purchase, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Steven MacGregor Read and Joyce I. Swader Bequest Fund