Artwork Page for View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, After a Storm

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View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, After a Storm

1838
(American, born England,1801–1848)
Culture
America
Measurements
Framed: 132.5 x 193.5 x 13 cm (52 3/16 x 76 3/16 x 5 1/8 in.); Unframed: 99.8 x 160.6 cm (39 5/16 x 63 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Public Domain
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Did You Know?

Nicknamed "Schroon Mountain" by the artist, the peak's official name is Hoffman Mountain.

Description

Championing the American wilderness, Cole declared, "We are still in Eden," in his Essay on American Scenery, published two years before he painted this view of the Adirondacks. The artist sketched the scene in early summer, but when he created the painting in his studio, he rendered it in a dramatic blaze of fall colors. Such a choice likely had nationalistic overtones; he once proclaimed that autumn was "one season where the American forest surpasses all the world in gorgeousness."

Cole included two Indigenous men in the painting’s right foreground foliage. At this time, the Adirondacks remained home to many Native Americans long after most had been forcibly removed from land east of the Mississippi River. While continuing to live, hunt, and fish in the area, these Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples were compelled to significantly adapt their existence amid increasing White settlement and its attendant lumber, mining, and tourist industries.
A horizontally oriented oil painting depicts a rugged landscape. A sharp, dark mountain peak rises above a vibrant lower half carpeted in red, orange, and yellow foliage. In the foreground, two small, light-skinned figures stand on a hillside near a leaning, broken tree trunk. To the right, dramatic columns of light pierce dark clouds, while the left features soft, gray clouds over a distant lake, creating a stark atmospheric contrast across the wilderness.

View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, After a Storm

1838

Thomas Cole

(American, born England,1801–1848)
America

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