View Near the Village of Catskill

This scene looks toward the Catskill Mountains from the New York village of Catskill, a view that Cole first sketched in the summer of 1825. The composition is stagelike, with its central body of water, distant mountains, and luminous atmosphere. The robust tree next to a dying stump in the foreground represent the cycle of life and death, demonstrating Cole’s aesthetic philosophy of endowing landscapes with symbolic significance and showing a harmonious balance between nature and settlement.