Thomas Cole: painter of storms

The nineteenth century American artist Thomas Cole of the Hudson Valley School is not much known in this country, but now he has an exhibition devoted to his work at the National Gallery in London. 

Cole was born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1801, emigrating to the US in 1818. From 1825, he lived in the lovely Catskill Mountains of New York State until shortly before his death in 1848. The Catskills has plenty of wild weather, and that led me to feature his work in my book Storm: Nature and Culture (Reaktion).

In 1835, he painted a tornado in the Catskills in a pretty straightforward, naturalistic way (picture 3) but he was also interested in storms as a metaphor, so in the final picture of his series, The Course of Empire (picture 2) a glowering vortex of storm clouds gather over a city as it is destroyed. Cole noted: ‘A savage enemy has entered the city. A fierce tempest is raging.’ In a related (free) exhibition at the National Gallery, the contemporary American artist Ed Ruscha offers his own take on the same theme.

Similarly in Cole's Voyage of Life series from 1842, Childhood and Youth have calm skies, while Manhood is tempestuous (picture 1)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Storm-Nature-Culture-John-Withington/dp/1780236611

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/thomas-cole-eden-to-empire

England's devastating Civil War

On this day………….370 years ago, King Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham, effectively kicking off the English Civil War of his Cavaliers against the Parliamentary Roundheads.

The war is often portrayed in England as having been a relatively gentlemanly affair, but it has been estimated that 85,000 people died as a result of military action and at least another 100,000 from disease caused by the disorder of war.

At least 150 towns were damaged, and 11,000 houses destroyed.     Villages such as Boarstall in Buckinghamshire were razed to the ground.    The Royalists sacked Bolton and Liverpool, while the Parliamentarians plundered Worcester ruthlessly.

At Beaminster in Dorset in 1644, a quarrel broke out among Royalist troops occupying the town.  A house was set on fire, and within two hours, the flames, fanned by a strong breeze, had burned down more than 140 homes, making this the most destructive fire in England in more than 30 years.