The Course of Empire: Five Paintings, One Landscape
Below you will find all five canvases of Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire (1833-1836), arranged in order so you can follow the story as Cole intended: The Savage State, The Arcadian State, The Consummation of Empire, Destruction, and Desolation.
As you scroll, keep your eye on the one thing that never changes: the mountain and the bay beneath. Cole painted the same view at five moments in time, so that the only variable is humanity itself. Watch how the light moves from stormy dawn to golden noon, then to fire and, finally, to moonlight.
The Arcadian canvas echoes a pure age and the ideal of sophrosyne, or moderation. The marble city of the third painting is hubris in its fullest form, and the fourth shows nemesis arriving to restore the balance. The Greeks warned against excess with the maxim meden agan, “nothing in excess,” and Cole seems to paint that warning on a monumental scale.
Take your time with each image, and compare them. Which painting speaks to you most? Do you read the sequence as a tragedy, a warning, or something more hopeful? Where do you see our own world reflected in these paintings?
Always remember the Gods!