Thomas Cole: The Artist as Architect

First study of the role of architecture in the work of Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of American painting.

Many scholars have delved deeply into the meaning of Cole’s paintings and the significance of his essays, poems, and philosophy, yet none have fully explored his architectural endeavors and their impact on his painting. In celebration of the recreation of the artist’s self-designed Italianate studio at Cedar Grove in Catskill, now the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, this book, and the exhibition it accompanies, focuses on the architectural elements found in Cole’s paintings and drawings as well as in his realized and visionary projects. The focus is The Architect’s Dream, 1840, a work that illustrates the history of western architecture from Egyptian through Gothic. Through expert texts by art historians and reproductions of Cole’s famous works, this book sheds light on a hitherto unexplored, yet fascinating, aspect of the career of this much beloved artist–and thus, on a crucial moment in the development of the Hudson River School and American art.