Archive for posts tagged with ‘Dark Ages’


Mar 26 2011

The Course of Empire, Desolation, Thomas Cole

American / Landscape / Paintings (Reproductions) / Romanticism - 1 year ago - troycapc

The Course of Empire, Desolation, 1836, Thomas Cole

This is a reproduction of the fifth of Thomas Cole’s five part series, “The Course of Empire”.  This fifth painting, “Desolation” depicts a landscape in which the capital of empire lies desolated in the aftermath of its violent destruction.  As daylight fades, the landscape is shown in the process of returning to wilderness.  Ruins lie broken in the vegatation as a pale moon rises over the sea.  The boulder-topped mountain is still visible from the earlier paintings and the moonrise provides a juxtaposition to the rising sun of the first painting.  The original canvas is 63.5 inches wide and 39.5 inches high and is in the New York Historical Society.

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