(Credits: Far Out / Mathew Benjamin Brady)
The Course of Empire is a cycle of paintings from the 1830s that are just as powerful when they were exhibited as they are today. This cycle of five paintings, done by Thomas Cole, an English artist based in America, depicts the creation of an idyllic kingdom.
Initially, man is in harmony with nature; then, it destroys nature and itself. In 1840, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law in America. The bill enabled the federal government to negotiate with southeastern Native American tribes for their ancestral lands in several states. One could argue that Cole took direct inspiration from these events for his paintings.
At the time, America was rampant with moral decay and gluttony, ravaging the rights and lands of its native peoples. Painters adopted the style of pastoralism to try to inspire Americans with a simple lifestyle, like that of the natives who lived in harmony with nature and animals.
This is exemplified in the first artwork, The Savage State, which is painted in an earthy, yet vibrant, colour palette. Only a handful of humans are seen running naked in the forest, covered by a meagre sash of animal skin as they hunt with bows and arrows. Man is seen coexisting and living side-by-side with nature. Cole himself described this as, “men are banded together for mutual aid in the chase, etc. The useful arts have commenced in the construction of canoes, huts, and weapons.”
Then, in the second painting, The Arcadian, we see a slight evolution. There are more people who are now participating in ‘man-made activities’ like farming, fire-making and building villages. Here, an emerging village begins to take shape in the distance, evident in the smoke bubbling into the sky.
However, at the bottom of the painting, we can see a mother watching her son as he etches a soldier with his finger into the soft soil of the riverbank. This pocket of imagery seems to be a visual clue into what the next painting will narrate. I found this little scene particularly powerful as it reminded me of our present-day rapid evolution era of digitalisation that never seems to stop and consumes young, impressionable minds.
That one image of the soldier is brought to life and multiplied by hundreds in the next painting called The Consummation of Empire. This is the biggest leap in contrast between paintings, as we see a complete transformation of the landscape. Now, humanity dominates, and very little nature is seen. Instead, it has been built over with impressive white marble buildings in a classical style. This painting screams opulence and wealth. People are being paraded across the cities where a clear sense of hierarchy has been introduced, as the scene reminds us of a Greco-Roman civilisation of god-worshippers.
But this is quickly torn down with the next painting, Destruction. As Cole himself states, “description of this picture is perhaps needless; carnage and destruction are its elements”. Indeed, the beautiful architecture before has now been completely destroyed, as we witness the shell of this imaginary city run aground with fighting and killing.
An enormous statue of a warrior is in the forefront of the painting and looms over the people, symbolising the war in action. However, its head is hidden in the smoke, suggesting he embodies the universal idea of man who craves destruction and pain.
We are drawn to a central figure, that of a woman in white who seems to be lit by a holy light as behind her, mangled dark bodies crunch together. We see her in her last moments of life as she is just about to jump off the cliff. Is she a symbol of freedom lost? Purity destroyed? Peace forfeited?
Then, finally, the last painting, Desolation, is a bittersweet representation of the aftermath of the war. No humans are seen, only abandoned buildings. There’s a sense of quietude and a strand of hope as the moon lights up the sky in faint pastel colours that recall the serenity of the initial paintings. Nature has returned to reclaim the buildings with weeds and branches climbing up the doric columns.
Cole concluded the cycle with an enigmatic message: nature always prevails, and after loss and destruction led by man, nature will allow us to be reborn to remind us of its power over us. At a time when the world is rampant with global conflicts and climate change disaster stories that invade our phone screens and newspaper headlines, Cole’s cycle of paintings serves as a healthy reminder that man’s power is incredibly finite and we would do well to recognise it and rein it in.
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