In a cycle of five paintings titled The Course of Empire, Cole showed the rise and fall of a great nation. The final canvas is a scene of violent destruction unsurpassed even by Game of Thrones.

When one first encounters “The Course of Empire,” the Consummation seems to loom over the rest of the paintings. It is the largest (130 cm x 196 cm, to the others’ 100 cm x 161 cm), and in Thomas Cole ...

Like most critics, I usually write on art that I have come to know as an adult. But I first encountered Cole’s masterpiece, The Course of Empire series, when I was 7 years old. This series of ...

In Thomas Cole’s advertisements for his Course of Empire series, he invokes Lord Byron’s elegiac observation as an epigraph of sorts. The five paintings, which span from the earliest stages of a ...

“The role of art is to offer a vision of the world ... The bird in your heart and the wave at your door.” Morway’s “Course of Empire” series will fill the walls of Gallery 2 through ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The American landscape painter Thomas Cole painted series of paintings in the 1830s and ‘40s dealing with the “Course of Empire,” and the “Voyage of Life,” themes ...