Hunter Museum of American Art

Analysis

Often called the father of American landscape painting, Cole was one of the earliest painters to focus on the American land, particularly the area around the Hudson River Valley. He, like other artists of his day, hoped to capture America as a new Eden and believed that the land itself was the nation's manifest destiny, a divine gift. The cabin in this woodland scene is dwarfed by the land, as man lives in harmony with the landscape. This painting may have been left unfinished (as seen in the relatively blank foreground area) as it was likely created around the time Cole died suddenly.