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No, not the King Cole of nursery rhyme fame. Rather, Thomas Cole, the “king” of American Romantic painting in the 19^th Century. Thomas Cole is the reputed founder of the Hudson River School – those artists who found in the American wilderness a vast world of visionary ideas that could be incarnated in painting. The Titan’s Goblet is a perfect example of the mind of Cole:

 

Painted in the 1830’s, the image has had various interpretations, none of which were Cole’s specific explanation of the meaning and purpose of the goblet and the landscape; he recorded nothing concerning its meaning. Here are my thoughts: I almost instantly saw the relationships between the iconographic elements as his effort to show the relationship between our Ancient Classical heritage and our never-ending attempts at civilization. The cup, left behind by the Titans – the predecessors of the Greek gods, holds an enormous lake with Classical architecture – a palace, a temple, and boats sailing on the water. The water spills over the sides and falls to the city below which rests in a barren landscape. This is a metaphorical composition that expresses the cultural timeline of humanity – from ancient societies to contemporary life. The water spilling over is the overflowing wisdom that nourishes human flourishing. From the past come the ideas of the Permanent Things of Faith and Reason – from Plato to Thomas Aquinas to GK Chesterton to Flannery O’Connor – all gone now but living still in the overflowing spill of the mythic goblet.

Thomas Cole found that the wilderness of the American landscape held a mysterious element of syncopation with the inevitable course of human history – filled with the rise and fall of civilizations, and a long-ago, far-away mythic sense modeled on the British Romantic artists he found in Europe, such as John Constable. The human imagination longs for mythic representation and The Titan’s Goblet is an image that conveys that sense – it was created to inspire wonder. If we came upon this scene in some literal moment at the edge of the world, we would marvel at it. And, by the way, as grand a scale as this image possesses, the actual painting is only 16 by 19 inches. It’s in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More about Cole in upcoming newsletters…

Last, may I wish you a beautiful moment wherever you are. Take time to really look at something today. If you are an artist, or would be an artist, how would you reveal it to someone else?

Blessed Day,

Linus Meldrum