Eden to Empire....and to ruins

This entry is ironically about a book I didn't buy: the catalogue to a fascinating art exhibition at London's National Gallery; I am afraid the cost, £50, put me off. But the show itself is excellent. Thomas Cole was born in Bolton but went to America and became one of the most successful landscape painters of his time. The exhibits show how he was influenced by famous European artists, notably Constable, Claude and Turner, but developed his own style to show the beauty of nature, notably in the New England/Hudson Valley area, and also to express his opposition to encroaching industry, railroads, etc., which he saw as destroying this Arcadia. The exhibition showcases his series of paintings called Eden to Empire which takes this theme to a new level: it portrays a mythical scene of pure nature being transformed into an imagined classical metropolis and then destroyed by war and corruption until eventually nature takes over again; rampant vegetation creeps over crumbling columns and towers (see picture). I was reminded of the ruined temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, gradually being reclaimed by the jungle. Eden to Empire is a powerful set of paintings, beautiful to look at, though one can't help think Cole was a bit like King Cnut trying to hold back the tide, there was never any doubt the railroads, the factories, and then the roads and the airports were going to criss-cross the northeast of the USA (though there is a good deal of beautiful countryside there even today). But this is a very enjoyable show about an artist who should be much more widely known.