Name: Anonymous 2018-01-23 7:04
• https://hooktube.com/watch?v=y5iMAMU53Ns
• https://uploads6.wikiart.org/images/thomas-cole/the-hunter-s-return-1845.jpg
Thomas Cole (1801–1848), English-born American romanticist artist, and environmentalist artist. Best known for his Empire series of paintings, depicts in The Hunter's Return the beginnings of environmental exploitation and destruction of the largely unspoiled nature in the still quite young American republic. For context, here are some choice excerpts from his Essay on American Scenery published in American Monthly Magazine, January 1836 http://www.csun.edu/~ta3584/Cole.htm :
I do recommend reading the essay in its entirely, though. It's applicable even more so today.
• https://uploads6.wikiart.org/images/thomas-cole/the-hunter-s-return-1845.jpg
Thomas Cole (1801–1848), English-born American romanticist artist, and environmentalist artist. Best known for his Empire series of paintings, depicts in The Hunter's Return the beginnings of environmental exploitation and destruction of the largely unspoiled nature in the still quite young American republic. For context, here are some choice excerpts from his Essay on American Scenery published in American Monthly Magazine, January 1836 http://www.csun.edu/~ta3584/Cole.htm :
Poetry and Painting sublime and purify thought, by grasping the past, the present, and the future — they give the mind a foretaste of its immortality, and thus prepare it for performing an exalted part amid the realities of life. And rural nature is full of the same quickening spirit — it is, in fact, the exhaustless mine from which the poet and the painter have brought such wondrous treasures — an unfailing fountain of intellectual enjoyment, where all may drink, and be awakened to a deeper feeling of the works of genius, and a keener perception of the beauty of our existence. For those whose days are all consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolities of fashion, unobservant of nature's loveliness, are unconscious of the harmony of creation — Heaven's roof to them Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps; No more — that lights them to their purposes — They wander 'loose about;' they nothing see, Themselves except, and creatures like themselves, Short lived, short sighted.
It was my intention to attempt a description of several districts remarkable for their picturesqueness and truly American character; but I fear to trespass longer on your time and patience. Yet I cannot but express my sorrow that the beauty of such landscapes are quickly passing away — the ravages of the axe are daily increasing — the most noble scenes are made desolate, and oftentimes with a wantonness and barbarism scarcely credible in a civilized nation. The wayside is becoming shadeless, and another generation will behold spots, now rife with beauty, desecrated by what is called improvement; which, as yet, generally destroys Nature's beauty without substituting that of Art. This is a regret rather than a complaint; such is the road society has to travel; it may lead to refinement in the end, but the traveller who sees the place of rest close at hand, dislikes the road that has so many unnecessary windings.
I do recommend reading the essay in its entirely, though. It's applicable even more so today.