Thomas Cole's The Oxbow Postcard

Anyone who has passed through the Connecticut River Valley near Northampton, Massachusetts has probably seen the Summit House up on top of Mt. Holyoke. Did you know that in 1836 when Thomas Cole painted this picture, the Summit House was the second most visited tourist spot in American. Ok, so America only reached to the Mississippi River back then. But still, that's pretty cool! The view is simply amazing, even now. A quick note in the middle foreground, Cole painted himself! A little art history, Thomas Cole is considered the founder of the Hudson River Valley School: Landscape painters who showed detailed and realistic, sometimes idealized portrayals of nature and pastoral settings. In The Oxbow, he juxtaposed the untamed wilderness on the left with a storm (human influences) changing the landscape to pastoral settlement. Interesting, The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford has the greatest collection of painting by artists of the Hudson River Valley School.